EDITOR’S NOTE:

Welcome to issue 2 of Corvus Review. We are so pleased to bring you another selection of supremely talented scribes from all over the country. Whether this is their first rodeo or just a tour stop on a list of many, the writers in this issue are more than simple storytellers. They are scribes, representing many diverse facets in a broad spectrum of writing style.

This issue, as was the case with issue 1, offers a range of both poetry and prose. Truly, Corvus has something for everyone this time around.

Happy Scribbling!

Janine “Typing Tyrant” Mercer

EIC, Corvus Review

CORVUS

REVIEW

Issue 2: Spring

2

TOC A Heated Discussion between Two English Gentlemen Euphrates Moss 2-3 Alan Swyer 3-8 For James Tate Euphrates Moss Mark McKee 9-10 Grove Koger 10-11 And I say to you Paul Lewellan 12-17 Anne Britting Oleson 18-19 And I say to you, sir! And I say to you Michael Lee Johnson 19 Sandra Anfang 20-21 And I say to you, sir! Richard Fein 21 Wendy Taylor Carlisle 22-23 And I say to you And I say to you, sir! Chad McClendon 23-29 Heather M. Browne 29-30 And I say to you…

David Spicer 30-31 Scott Archer Jones 31-37 My Mom’s Coffee Order M.J. Iuppa 37-38 Rick Hartwell 38 Quad 4 Cael Jacobs 39-42 Jodi Sykes 42-43 Grande Kyle Hemmings 44 Art Heifetz 45 Half decaf ½ Extra hot XH/XF William Cass 45-50 J.W. Mark 50-51 Extra foamy Janette One raw sugar 1RS Valentina Cano 51-52 William Doreski 52-53 Hazelnut H Latte L Christina Murphy 53-54

Richard King Perkins II 54 The Sound1

Contributor’s Page 55-57 And soundness is the highest grace About the Editor 58 The zenith of defined completion The foremost object of compulsion The paramount necessity of all structure Yeats “wrote for the ear” in his verse When he fine-tuned the sound to perfection And struck lines for the eye invariably2 Emily Dickinson found her voice in purity Of poems, her life, her dress, herself, etc. Whitman found the sound in heterodoxy Completely circumventing rhyme and meter Shakespeare found it in virtuosic wordplay Practically tuning language for his plays Joyce found it in the human menagerie Completely re-tooling The Odyssey for life Chaucer found it in the celebration of life The vibrancy of short stories and characters

1 From the hills, from the clouds. Echo to Narcissus (suffixfusion), Narcissus to Reflexion (pale). 2 I obviously write just as much for the eye. 3

And contrary to the conceits of Keats, the Friendship Lush3, Science is fully reconcilable with poetics Alan Swyer And even a boon to such happenings "What are you up to today?" Rothbard Those who sleep would do so soundly asked over the phone, breaking a silence that That they could rise invigorated, aware was well into its fifth month. The logician seeks fidelity and circuity4 In the soundness of a given claim "What do you have in mind?" Stern Mathmeticians seek the sound replied. Often in the variable X And Ex Y simply has no solution "Lunch at the Indian place." Though life will provide hints: The sound can be found everywhere5 "I'll meet you at 1." And light: so much can be said For eyes well that can see Though curious not just as to why – but Just as much can be said especially why at that particular moment – For ears as well to hear: Stern did not push, knowing that he would The sound an object makes find out soon enough. Can tell more than the appearance.

The very worst of clichés it seems Noticeably devoid of the bravado for Is to see “right through” someone or other which he had become known, Rothbard drifted into the restaurant nearly twenty minutes late. —As false as a note found in Mozart’s joke score "I went brain dead," he explained, Riddled with common amateur’s clams "driving up and down Santa Monica No, nobody ever sees through anyone Boulevard like a total idiot until I Literally or metaphorically remembered the place is on Wilshire." But doctors always carry stethoscopes. "It happens," Stern responded.

"Not to me. Let's hit the buffet table, and then I'll start my tale of woe."

Together the two of them filled their plates with rice, eggplant, curried vegetables, and tandoori chicken, and then returned to their booth as cups of chai were brought over together with a basket of hot naan.

"I know you've never been a big Barb fan –" Rothbard then began. "Hey –"

3 Lush verse, to be sure, but also an inveterate imbiber of the spirits of ignorantualism. "You've been good about it, biting your 4 True Premise + True Premise ––> True Conclusion lip –" 5 Not so rare, it would appear. 4

"C'mon –" Rothbard pondered Stern's words for a moment, then took a sip of tea. "So what do "And not getting pissed that you and I you suggest?" he asked. never see each other. But all that's over. Want to know why?" "A call to a realtor I know."

"If you want to tell me." An hour-and-a-half later, as he and Stern pulled up in front of a little cottage on Rothbard grimaced. "She wants out." the beach side of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Rothbard shook his head. To Rothbard's surprise, Stern said nothing. "What's the matter?" Stern asked.

"No comment?" Rothbard inevitably "I can't even begin to imagine what asked. Barb would say."

"What do you want me to say?" "Does it matter?"

"You can rub it in if you want." For the first time that day, Rothbard brightened. "Hell, no!" "No thanks. Together, the two men got out of the car "So what do you think of the Oakwood and approached the smiling realtor who was Apartments?" standing by the front door.

"That your idea? Or hers?" "Ron, this is Daphne," Stern said. "Daphne, Ron." "She figures since they rent furnished places. And there's a pool –" After a tour of the house and a discussion of terms, Rothbard was standing "Plus lonely souls out here for a month on its wooden deck overlooking the beach or two on business. Or like you, separated when Stern stepped out to join him. from their wives –" "Gonna take it?" Stern asked. "That bad?" asked Rothbard. "Not sure I can afford to. "Worse. Your kids won't want to visit. You'll be wanting to drown your sorrows or "But can you afford not to?" jump off a bridge. And meanwhile –" "Meaning?" When Stern hesitated, Rothbard put down the drumstick he was gnawing on. "Life's not just about bucks." "Yeah?" "I know, but –" "Guess who will be living large on your dime." "And here's something that'll please you. Know who once rented the place?" 5

"Fire away." start of sorts thanks to an entry-level job working for an aging comic, which made him "Koufax when he was pitching for the an unlikely guy in that universe since he was Dodgers." able to read without his lips moving. Next came a gig writing concert and album reviews "You're the best friend I have," for a trade paper, before a leap into what's Rothbard said after the lease was signed and known as the reissue business. That meant they were back in Santa Monica. "Promise that in addition to finding hidden treasures in you'll come out and visit." record companies' vaults, Stern also got to interact with long-time heroes such as Ray "Okay." Charles, Solomon Burke, and Lowell Fulson, plus lesser known but far from unimportant "Often?" music biz figures like Mable John, Sid Feller, Clydie King, and Hank Crawford. "Got my word," Stern said, knowing full well that even before Rothbard's wife became During the time Stern was rising from first a nuisance, than a road block, getting writing introductory essays and liner notes to together had been a running joke for ages. producing compilations, then adding additional importance by managing acts that included, during a tempestuous period, the Though hardly reflective by nature, notorious Ike Turner, Rothbard was taking a Stern found himself pondering something Rothbard said while headed back to his office. more circuitous route to the West Coast. If he was indeed Rothbard's best friend, then the two of them clearly had different While toiling as a substitute teacher in definitions of the word. working-class New Jersey towns, Rothbard suddenly got a second chance when a bachelor uncle died, bequeathing the To Stern, Rothbard was mainly wherewithal for his nephew to try law school. someone who'd been part of the scenery, off That, however, proved to be easier said than and on, for what felt like forever. Hailing done when applications were rejected first by from the same New Jersey blue collar town, Seton Hall and Rutgers, then several other they had only occasionally interacted there in nearby places. Undaunted, he stumbled upon anything but the most casual way. Thanks to an unaccredited program in the woods of a measure of prowess in sports – baseball, Pennsylvania that was willing to accept basketball, and even boxing – Stern had run anyone who could walk, talk, and afford with what was considered to be the fast crowd, whereas Rothbard had been tuition. nondescript almost to the point of being invisible. Whether it was due to fate, karma, or just plain luck, Rothbard finished his studies just as a new test was offered to law school It was only later, when the two of them grads. Dubbed the Multi-State Bar Exam, it found themselves 3,000 miles away from granted reciprocity to those who passed the their home turf, that anything resembling a kinship began, which meant a lunch every so bar in participating parts of the country. often, plus an occasional outing to a Dodger or Laker game. After searching in vain for a prep course, Rothbard made what proved to be a life-changing decision. Instead of becoming Having driven cross-country after one more scuffling lawyer in search of clients, college with the hope of somehow making his he chose to create a program that would way in the music business, Stern had gotten a 6

prepare students for the test he had just "About?" taken. "For one thing, Barb's threatening to After several months of work, Rothbard bring in forensic accountants." was elated to receive an offer from a New York publishing house. But that glee quickly "To find the diamonds and rubies evaporated when he discovered that the you've got stashed in underground vaults?" terms stipulated that he would receive only a pittance. Told that the alternative would be "I don't even know where the goddamn to start peddling from the trunk of his car, idea came from." Rothbard decided to do exactly that. After depleting much of his remaining funds by "How many divorced friends does she self-publishing the study guide, off he went on have?" an extended trek to law schools near and far, racking up thousands of miles as he "An army." crisscrossed the country in a battered old Saab. "A happy-go-lucky bunch?" As his business grew, and with it a "Happy, my ass! Most are vicious man tendency toward bombast that would have haters." previously seemed unimaginable, Rothbard began to hire staffers, while simultaneously "Not one of whom feeds advice to your upgrading his resources by adding CDs, DVDs, soon-to-be ex-, who's probably steaming that then downloads and streaming. Next came a you're not at the Oakwood Apartments." move to California, where his first step was to reconnect with Stern, not as the nonentity he once was, but as an ever more self-important "That's it!" Rothbard exclaimed. "So entrepreneur on the rise. what in hell do I do?"

"I need your help!" Rothbard implored "Tell her you're willing to split over the phone ten days after moving into the everything fifty-fifty right down the middle without paying exorbitant fees for lawyers or beach house. "Indian food at 1?" accountants, forensic or otherwise." "I'll be the one attacking the buffet table," said Stern. "And if she says no?"

Though sporting a Malibu tan thanks to "Even with staff, how much of the his new digs, once again Rothbard looked business is ultimately you?" rattled when he trudged into the restaurant. "Most." "Let's load up our plates before we blab," he said disconsolately. "Give me a percentage."

Together the two men did just that, then "For the heavy lifting? Eighty – maybe sat down to eat. even eighty-five."

"Tell me what I should do," Rothbard "And if the stress is getting to you?" begged after wolfing down some chicken makhani. "Go on –" 7

"In addition to what's hers in a As Rothbard's Bar Review empire grew, community property state, I'm sure she wants so too did personality traits that Stern never a chunk of future earnings." would have dared imagine. The quiet, thoughtful guy who seemed grateful for "Absolutely." whatever attention he received evolved into a study in arrogance and insensitivity, throwing "And if you're too burned out to do his weight around more and more by over- much work?" stepping, over-tipping, and over-reacting.

"I love it!" Driving flashy cars, and sporting clothes more suited for a GQ model than for a pudgy, "Do you want to hurt her? Or simply do balding guy like him, his behavior became what's fair." increasingly problematic for Stern.

"I'm pissed, but I don't want to hurt Yet even as Stern was attributing his her." discomfort to Rothbard's changes in attitude and behavior, there was a part of him that "And what about Barb? She want to could not help but wonder whether play fair?" something else troubled him even more. Where historically there had been an imbalance in their relationship, with Stern, "She wants blood," Rothbard stated. first as the jock who moved with the in- "And the crazy thing is I can't even figure out crowd, then as a youngster on the rise in the why." music biz, very much the alpha dog, Rothbard's ever-increasing affluence had "Why doesn't matter. Think of it as a created a seismic shift. Thanks to an ever- game of tug-of-war. If you're alone against a burgeoning empire that came to include an squad of lawyers and forensic accountants, office in Manhattan plus a building in can you possibly win if you play by their downtown Santa Monica, Rothbard, when it rules?" came to both money and influence, was on top. "Not a chance." Any misgivings Stern was having with "But what happens if you change the the ugly side of Rothbard's metamorphosis rules?" surged even further when Barb came into the picture. "How?" In contrast to the members of the "You know how in tug-of-war bimbo circuit with whom Rothbard, who had everything starts when someone yells Go?" never before had success with women, had been making up for lost time, Barb, whom he "Yeah." met while teaching a seminar in Cedar Rapids, was focused, clever, and driven. "What if at that moment, instead of of Recognizing an opportunity, her first move pulling, you simply let go of the rope?" was to sweet talk her way into what had been Rothbard's bachelor pad in Venice. Then, just "They fall on their goddamn asses!" a couple of months later, the new couple Rothbard said with delight. moved into a house in nearby Pacific Palisades. 8

All the while, Barb deftly maneuvered a "So onto the next chapter?" path into a vastly different, and far more upscale, social whirl. With her successfully Rothbard nodded. "And you won't distancing Rothbard from those who had believe what it is. Ready?" been part of his single life, it was far from shocking that Stern received no invitation "Fire away." either to the wedding that took place in Iowa, or to the subsequent celebratory party in LA. "Somebody made an offer for my company." Though in some ways relieved, Stern could nonetheless not help but feel a measure "That's great." of pique. While never actually voicing his displeasure, he ducked a couple of calls from "And the beautiful part is that Barb Rothbard, then found excuses to turn down won't see a dime. Which proves?" several requests and invitations. "You tell me." It was only six months later that he finally relented, accompanying Rothbard to "Karma is some powerful shit!" Staples to see the Lakers get beat by the Spurs. Then came a series of once-in-a-blue- Snapping his fingers, Rothbard moon lunches, which became even more imperiously demanded immediate attention infrequent after first a daughter, then a son from a waiter. were added to the Rothbard brood. Then came the period with zero communication "Champagne for me and my friend," he until Rothbard finally broke the silence. bellowed. "Make it Cristal!" "Please come out and celebrate with me," Rothbard implored six weeks-and-a-half Had the evening ended soon after, weeks later. perhaps Stern would have gone home without a terrible taste in his mouth. But by the end of the third bottle, he was beyond "The divorce is finalized?" mortified by Rothbard's relentlessly overbearing behavior. "Yup, and I'm a free man." Recognizing that everything in the Not having been to that part of the world is finite, Stern understood that his world since the initial trip to the beach house, relationship with Rothbard, which was Stern arrived at an Italian place in time to see tenuous in the best of times, had finally Rothbard play Mayor of Malibu. Between the reached its end. glad-handing, the schmoozing, and the kisses, Stern had precious little appetite when at last the two of them were seated.

"You were really there for me,"

Rothbard announced.

"Hey –"

"Hey, nothing. And I'll never forget it."

9

A Small, Good Day

Mark McKee The kid at the skee ball table has moved to Whack-a-Mole, beating senseless with his Business is bustling inside Chuck E. cushioned mallet the heads of molded plastic Cheese. A kid you don't know just won a beings. As you watch the frenzy, his shape hundred points in skee ball and the red globe begins to change. He becomes a shape of on top of the game is whirling madly. On orange light, blinding you as not only he, but stage in front of you Chuck E. Cheese himself your entire field of vision flashes bright white, is doing a soft-shoe routine with a very fake, blinks, shudders, shifts, dances, and then he is but no less animated, man-in-a-gorilla-suit. clear again, still beating the molded plastic The waiter, a kid bigger than you (but a kid with a cushioned mallet. just the same), hurried away with your order five minutes ago and between soft-shoe This has been happening frequently too. scuffles you cast glances over your shoulder, Along with the fact that things have stopped hoping the 10" pie with everything will not be making sense, your eyes, your tongue, and long in coming. your mental state appear to be failing you too. And for a second there, though you're loath to Because you're hungry. admit it, that kid with the mallet, the one whacking moles, he began to look You hesitate to use the word because, almost...dead. His skin gray, hanging from his frankly, it always strikes you as disgusting, face in strips, the muscle long since rotted but nevertheless it is the only way in which to away, his blackened teeth peeking through a describe the fleshy teeth gnawing at your gaping hole where his cheek should be. But belly: ravenous, you are ravenously hungry, now that you look at him, he looks just like which is strange because you had three you. And you're right as rain. pancakes and two patties of sausage not two hours ago for breakfast. Your stomach gnaws. The pungent scent of tomato sauce and cheese is about to send But its been that way the last few days. you from ravenous to I-could-eat-someone, A growing hunger. And to make matters anyone, when you see the kid with the worse, things have, on the whole, stopped pimples, his arms held aloft, a large round making sense. Just now, the older kid with the disc balancing atop one hand, swinging and pimples, the one who took your order, you twisting through the running children as he asked him for--you shake your head in makes his way to your table. Your pie. You embarrassment at how stupid it must've can finally calm that gnawing in your sounded to him; and before he stepped up stomach. you had already rehearsed your order twice in your head, but no--he said, "May I take "Your pie, sir," the kid says with an air. your order," and you having practiced, said He sits it down in front of you. "Garnish?" he not "A ten inch pie with everything" but asks, brandishing a small shaker from his "Dabbled dream frog nine timber," and you apron. gasped, blushed, knew you had totally muffed it up and began to try again only to find you You shake your head no. couldn't remember what messages to send to your brain in order to make your tongue "Enjoy your pie," he says and begins the move--in fact, what was a tongue, again? But trek back to the kitchen--when you begin to you recovered and after an inquisitive glance scream, "My mother! My mother!!!" as before the waiter shuffled away, carrying his your eyes the pizza you've been relishing has pimples with him. turned into the desiccated head of your 10

mother. Though you will laugh about it later, Dear Paul the first thought--what made me think it?-- Grove Koger after closing your mouth, the scream cut short as the waiter rushes back to your table, 3 June 2015 is: Wonder where Dad is? Because they have Dear Paul, both been dead a year. Two of the first victims of the plague. I hope that this letter finds you in good health, at least as good as it can be at your And the waiter grabs your eight-year- age—meaning our age, of course. After all, old arms and puts his chalk-white face in who else but people our age writes letters front of yours and says, "What? What is it?" anymore? And you say, "That's my mother's head! My mother's head is on the pizza pan where my I understand that next Friday afternoon pizza should be!" And the waiter drops his the authorities are going to come clean in arms, but keeps his face close to yours as he some sort of press conference. That’s says, "You feelin’ okay, kid? I mean..." Greenwich Mean Time, so I’ll have a chance for a drink or two and a leisurely lunch. And your mother's head speaks to you, Presumably you’ve heard the same thing, so it the right side of the jaw hanging loose from really doesn’t matter whether this reaches its hinge, and says, "Christopher? Christopher, you beforehand. And probably it won’t; I’ve listen, it’s okay, honey. This is the way it's been waiting for a package from the States for supposed to be--" over three months now. I regret not having a computer, or whatever might have taken the And the waiter looks at her, interrupts: computer’s place since the last time I looked, "Hey, kid. What's a matter? You know we eat but I don’t suppose I’ll be picking up one at our dead. The government said so. How else this point. are we supposed to get rid of them? There's a pile behind the building that'll feed us for a In any case, there have been more than month--" enough signs, haven’t there? I climbed up onto the roof last night with a bottle of grappa # to watch, well—whatever those things are. But the lightning drove me back inside. I Because you have, in your short eight thought it was frightening enough over Lake years, always looked at the world through Geneva that summer, but to see a bolt stretch rose-colored glasses, a proverbial and literal from one horizon to the other and then smell childlike mind, and because the molecular the waves of ozone roll over you was more structure of that mind has been than I could deal with. (I can’t help but metamorphosing over the last several remember how you and Jane and I used to months, you have failed to notice the rapid crawl out her window onto the battlements changes in your immediate environment. with a few joints. God how I miss her! Which I hope—despite everything that’s happened— But today is a good day. you’ll have the good grace to let me to say.)

Today you have learned to see things as But getting back to the situation here, they really are. everybody is on edge, although they still lift their caps to you—those who are left, that is.

Earlier this week I watched a poor fellow, he must have been at wit’s end, beat his donkey with his belt in the street. Then the next thing

you know he’s weeping and embracing the 11

poor beast, which had stood there mutely the Arrivederci, whole time. Even the damn gulls seem to Grove know something’s changed. They’re not flying. Fine fall days like these and they’re not flying. Silent too. Of course they’re seeing the same things that we are.

It all reminds me of those apocalyptic stories that J.G. used to write, and that we laughed off at the time. What a pity he isn’t here—or, presumably, anywhere—to enjoy the show.

I’ve just finished laying in some basics: a keg of wine, beans and rice, a crock of those olives you two liked so much, a bushel of apples for the cellar. Amazingly enough the building’s cistern still functions. There’s an old man living nearby, and I suppose he’ll continue making deliveries as long as there’s anything left to deliver. Or perhaps he’ll disappear like so many others. There seems to be a tendency in a situation like this for people to head for the hills or the beach. In this case it’s the hills, where several hundred people have taken up residence in caves. I wish them luck.

I’m not a particularly violent man, so I don’t own anything in the way of weapons, although there’s a lug wrench in the rental. If I remember correctly, you used to hunt, so you may be better prepared than I am over here. Perhaps you’ll find some sort of closure in the news. I hope it’s something worth waiting for, some kind of solution. Wouldn’t that be grand?

Well, I’ll definitely have that drink. Or drinks. A Negroni or two, maybe—the kind of thing I don’t normally order, particularly in the middle of the day. There’s a place down near the quay that has a television and claims to make the best Negronis on the coast. Friday may be the day for some. I was thinking about catching a taxi, but on reflection, I think I’ll take the rental. It may be a good afternoon to have a car—and a wrench.

12

People Skills in Pierpont Woods were dropping the last of Paul Lewellan their fall foliage. A cinderblock building at the far end of the lagoon provided restrooms in “Sometimes the goose crap is so thick the summer when farmers’ markets, band on the sidewalk you think you’re ice skating.” concerts, and Frisbee golf tournaments Hank looked up. The well-groomed populated the park. In the winter, when the bearded man standing in front of him wore a lagoon froze, the building served as a thick black wool overcoat, a dark red tartan warming house for Pee Wee Hockey and scarf wrapped twice around his neck, and a Middle School skating parties. black leather cowboy hat tipped at a rakish angle. “I like your hat,” Hank said. “Don’t Hank nodded to the fifty-something know that I’ve ever seen one exactly like it.” stranger. “Walking on the grass is worse “It’s a jackaroo hat, made from because of the dog crap.” kangaroo leather. Jackaroos are Australian “Scylla and Charybdis. Odysseus’s cowboys. I found it in an empty bathroom choice.” stall in Darwin. Been wearing it ever since. “Exactly so. Two possible courses of It’s my good luck hat.” action, both bad.” Hank motioned to the “Ever get this cold in Darwin?” empty spot on the park bench beside him. “Care to join me?” “Never. Certainly not in December. That’s summer there. Probably 32 degrees “I wasn’t sure you wanted company.” Celsius today—88 degrees Fahrenheit.” “Normally I keep my own counsel. Tommy glanced over again at Hank. “I can’t This morning I could use a friend.” Hank slid help but notice that you didn’t dress for the over to make room. “I’m Hank. Hank Briggs.” cold.”

“Thomas Whellin. Tommy.” Neither “The pajamas are flannel.” man offered to shake hands. “Damned cold “Fair enough.” out here.” Hank wore powder blue flannel “Not cold enough to freeze the pajamas, a black and orange Chicago Bears lagoon.” Hank pointed to the geese sweatshirt, brown slippers, white socks, and a swimming from the open water toward the Chicago Blackhawks stocking cap. He’d shore. A young couple in matching yellow wrapped a brown striped sleeping bag and black Columbia parkas had brought stale around himself. Sara Lee White Bread to feed them. Hank recognized the female as the daughter of one “Left the house in a hurry.” He of his neighbors. “The geese aren’t motioned to a large two-story steel-gray Cape complaining.” Cod style home down the block. A late model Ford Taurus was parked in the drive beside a “I’m not complaining either, just gleaming new metallic red BMW X3. stating a fact.” Tommy looked out on the “Couldn’t find where I’d dropped my coat last lagoon. It covered the area of a city block, night. I was distracted at the time.” ringed by a sidewalk with dark green park benches set at uniform intervals. All the “Distracted?” benches faced the lagoon. “Woman trouble,” Hank said as he Copeland Creek defined the park’s buried himself deeper into the sleeping bag, eastern boundary. Beyond the creek the oaks 13

tucking his legs up under him. “Thought the “Rum.” cold would clear my head.” “Excellent.” Tommy unbuttoned three Hank looked back to the couple in the buttons and reached inside his overcoat. matching parkas. The man was dressed in “Twenty-five-year-old Ron Zacapa.” He faded Levis while the woman wore black extracted the bottle and handed it to Hank. tights and a black wool skirt. They had on “World-class liquor deserves quality matching Keen hiking boots. After she’d glassware.” He reached into the coat again emptied her bag of bread, the girl kissed her and removed two glasses. “Waterford companion. The young man returned the kiss crystal.” He put his finger up to his lips. “Sh- and then pulled her into his body. “Oh my!” h-h-h-h. My daughter’s glasses.” Hank said under his breath. He turned back to Tommy. “At least you’re dressed for the Tommy held out the glasses while cold. Get that coat around here?” Hank poured the golden brown liquid. “Judged the world’s finest aged rum three “Hardly. I won it in a cribbage game years running.” He handed a glass to Hank. from a rancher in Aukland. He claimed to The rum smelled of caramel and spices, cocoa have produced the wool for it, but I didn’t and smoked vanilla. believe him. Inferior herds, from what I could see. But then I was only in New Zealand a few They clicked glasses. The Guatemalan weeks.” rum had a syrupy consistency, but tasted like a well-aged cognac. Tommy finished his “And the scarf?” drink first and set the glass down on the bench. “So, tell me about your woman “It’s a Whellin clan tartan from Wales. problems. I’m a bit of an expert.” A gift from a parson’s wife I met in Tallinn.” “First, you need to know I’m a jobber. “Tallinn? Is that in Wales?” I supply grocery stores with nonfood items. Got hooked on the grocery business in high “No. Estonia, lovely country, the school when I was a bagger at National Tea. twenty-first century nestled in medieval Lost my virginity in the cooler to the deli stone.” manager, Olivia Townsend, who was in my “So, what are you doing in Iowa?” mother’s canasta group.”

“Visiting my daughter and her family.” Hank set down his empty glass, and Tommy pointed to a beige split-level Tommy poured another round. “After that I bordering Copeland Creek. “Discovered this couldn’t shake the allure of the food business morning that they blame me for my wife’s even after six very profitable years in death two years.” He hesitated. “A skiing industrial linens.” accident in Nepal,” he told Hank as if that Hank began to sip again as he spoke. exonerated him. “I decided to take a walk “I met my wife, Peg, in the express lane at Hy- with friends.” Vee. We courted while she went through The only other people in the park management training and married when she were the young couple, their lips locked, was transferred to the produce department struggling to unzip each other’s parka. on Devil’s Glenn Road. She left me when she “Friends?” discovered that our home freezer was filled with quality cuts of beef because I was having Tommy tapped the left side of his an affair with Denise Blouter, a butcher at the overcoat. “Rum.” He tapped the right side. Fareway store on 53rd Street.” “Rye. Your choice.” 14

“So, when did this happen?” “As a jobber I go to a wide range of stores from the high end to the discounters,” “We divorced three years ago. But Hank explained. “Six weeks ago I went to the then last Friday my ex- and I had a tryst on Save-A-Lot down on River Drive. First thing I the loading dock of Garden Valley Produce noticed was that they had a new checker: before the day shift started. Peg’s the Madeline. Actually, she checks, does some manager there now. She’s also dating one of stocking, and is the backup bookkeeper on the partners. He knows nothing about food. weekends. She’s mid-forties and shows some He’s just a money man.” wear, but we clicked right off.”

“So I take it that’s his new BMW Tommy took another look at the man parked in your drive? And that Peg is part of beside him. His hair was thinning, but even your woman problems?” wrapped in a sleeping bag wearing blue flannel pajamas he was very handsome. “You Hank was startled. “Why, yes, it is. seem to have a way with women.” How’d you know?” “I can see through the surface to the “You don’t strike me as the BMW type. true woman below.” The quarreling lovers Too ostentatious.” distracted Hank. “Probably comes from my “Exactly right.” Hank felt the need to years in sales.” explain. “I drive a five-year-old Nissan “So what drew you to the woman at Murano with 230,000 miles on it. Runs like a the Save-A-Lot?” top.” “Madeline.” Tommy nodded as if he understood perfectly. “So, one part of your woman “Yes, what attracted you to trouble equation is that your ex-wife Madeline?” borrowed her boyfriend’s Beamer to pop in, unannounced, for a quickie on a Sunday “That’s just it, most guys wouldn’t morning, and someone other than you met give her a second look.” He shook his head to her at the door.” He swirled the aged rum clear it from the cold and the rum. “She was in gently in the crystal tumbler. an old red Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt, faded Wrangler jeans, and black yellow “Something like that,” Hank admitted Converse high tops she found at the Salvation sullenly. As he sipped the rum he tried to Army clothing center. But it’s Save-A-Lot, so shake off the imagines of that confrontation in nobody dresses up there.” the living room. Hank observed that the voices of the Hank turned back to the young arguing couple had softened, and the social couple. The woman’s parka hood had slipped distance between them had narrowed. A off her head exposing a mass of auburn curls. moment later, the young woman took the The young man whispered something in her man’s hand and led him over to a park bench. ear. She stepped back and slapped him. They For just a moment she looked in Hank’s started arguing. She refused to let the man direction and waved. The couple began touch her. kissing again.

“So, who met Peg at the door?” Hank watched the young man Tommy felt the effects of the second rum. He respond to the woman’s advances. Perhaps was drinking too quickly. Still, when the he’d been too impatient before, or else felt glasses were empty, he poured a third drink uncomfortable because of the cold or the old before putting the bottle back in his coat. 15

men who stood watching them. He’d rushed “That’s just it. I met her the same day things. I met Madeline. I drove from the Save-A-Lot to Schnuck’s on Middle Road. Upscale. High- “Anyway, after I’d finished my end service. Very difference from the West business with the manager at the Save-A-Lot, Side markets. Strictly suburban. I was setting I picked up a quart of 2%.” up a new end cap display of imported Christmas ornaments, and I got the message “Milk?” that the new day manager, Rochelle, wanted “A conversation starter. I paid for it in to see me. I found her in the office wearing a coins to give more time to strike up a red power suit, and black, sensible short- conversation. I found out that Madeline lived heeled Free Spirits. Turns out she came to in an apartment over the Living Art Tattoo the grocery game late in her career. She Gallery. She walked to work and everywhere worked as a flight attendant for Delta until else. She was in rehab. I think there were a she saved enough to finish college. Got her couple DWIs and some jail time, although she degree in Business, and then was a hasn’t fully confided in me. But she’s very pharmaceutical rep for Pfizer for six years. professional in the store.” Went back and got her executive MBA at Wash U and wound up in Schnuck’s “What do you mean?” management training program by lying about her age. By the time they found out she was “Well, despite her obvious attraction over forty, she’d won their hearts.” to me she was hesitant to go out with a jobber. You know, someone who does “Rochelle sounds like an amazing business with the store. But I finally woman.” convinced her a couple weeks ago to go to a concert at the Redstone Room. Turns out that Hank downed the rest of the rum. she loves Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers. I “Yes, if it weren’t for her commitment had to promise her AA sponsor not to let her problems.” buy beer, and I stuck by it. We made love in “Commitment problems?” the back seat of my Nissan in the Third Street parking ramp. I think she was too “Yes.” Hank shook his head. The embarrassed to let me see her tiny apartment young couple began kissing. He suspected and didn’t want to invite me in.” that if it were after dark on a warm July night rather than 10:00 a.m. on a late November “She had her pride,” Tommy said. The Sunday, they would soon be making love on two young people were still not touching, but the bench. He turned back to Tommy. “She he noted that their body language had told me she wasn’t ready to settle down.” changed. She was leaning in toward him, her head slightly tilted. “So, then what’s your “But you just met her six weeks ago.” woman problem? Are you being forced to Hank shrugged off the criticism “And you’ve choose between Madeline and your ex-wife had sex with two other women during that Peg?” time period.”

“Not really. Actually, it’s Rochelle that “Five other women actually. Not that I’ve asked to marry me.” Hank picked up the it matters.” third glass of rum and slipped again. “My this is smooth. Never had anything like it.” “Oh, but it does matter.” Tommy had met men like Hank before. The last time was “Who’s Rochelle?” in Guatemala City nine months ago. It was at a party sponsored by Cervecería Centro 16

“You’re the one with the commitment young man could have been Hank. Life was problem.” Tommy drained the tumbler of rum less complicated then. and motioned for Hank to do the same. Hank felt the cold through his flannel “I think I can help.” Tommy stood up pajama bottoms. He hurried to catch up with and put his daughter’s crystal back safely into Tommy. “What’s the plan?” his coat pockets. “You need to introduce me to your houseguests before they leave.” Tommy didn’t slow down. “I’ll just work my magic.” “I don’t understand.” Hank gathered up the sleeping bag he’d been wrapped in. He “I can’t pay you,” he said dragging the was unsteady, probably from the three shots sleeping bag behind him. of rum he’d rapidly ingested, but possibly “Oh, I think you can.” Tommy from the prospect of facing the women stopped. He adjusted his jackaroo hat. “I’ll waiting back at his house. “What do you plan trade my expertise for yours. You know how to do?” to attract women. I know how to retain “I’m Tommy Whellin,” he said by way them.” Hank thought about that for a of explanation. “That name obviously means moment. It made a certain perverse sense. nothing to you. But if you were to approach “Hank, I am registered for the Million that young woman over there,” he said Dollar Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament at the motioning to the couple who were now casino this week. I fly out next Sunday. repositioning themselves on the bench, “she That’s all the time we’ll need.” He thrust out would tell you all about me.” his right hand. “Deal?” “I don’t understand.” “Deal.” Hank said. “I’m a consultant. Marriage and “So, when we step inside that door,” relationship counseling. I’ve published a Tommy said, motioning to the front of the dozen books. I have a syndicated column. I Cape Cod home, “who will we find there?” appear regularly on Dr. Oz, Ellen, and the Daily Show. I travel the world giving advice “Madeline. We had a date Saturday to troubled lovers with deep pockets and night. She was embarrassed because she had poor people skills.” no proper clothes to go out. So I cooked her a steak dinner on the grill, sautéed mushrooms, Hank listened to Tommy’s pitch, but and my famous Caesar salad. Perrier, no he couldn’t stop staring at the young couple. alcohol. We planned to watch movies by the They’d opened their parkas and the woman fire and pop popcorn over the dying embers.” had climbed onto the man’s lap facing him, her legs spread, her knees pressed again the “But…?” back of the bench. The young man looked nervously at the two men, but Hank gestured “How did you know there was a but?” that they were leaving. Indeed Tommy had already turned toward Hank’s house. “People pay me to know these things,” he said, dismissing him. Then Tommy Hank imagined the woman thought better of it. “It was your unbuckling her lover’s belt and unzipping his paralanguage. I can teach you the basics of pants. He imagined her lifting her skirt and reading it.” tearing at her black tights. He imagined her rising up and then thrusting down to impale “Unfortunately, earlier in the day, I herself on her lover. Forty years ago, that had suggested to Rochelle that I would be 17

spending Saturday night alone. She had to meeting women.” Tommy noted Hank’s body work late, but on a whim swung by after her language. “Why do you ask?” shift.” “It’s just that Madeline loves to travel, Tommy was amazed. “On a whim?” but never has any money because she’s always attracted to the wrong kind of men. “Well, that’s what she said.” They She has a passport that she’s never used, but were almost to the door. “But she’d packed she’d need a new wardrobe.” an overnight bag, an assortment of lingerie, three bottles of wine, and a six-pack of porn “You said she had a lot of miles.” DVDs. From her years as a pharmaceutical rep, she’d learned a few things about pleasing “Highway miles. She’s a classic. A men.” collector’s edition in the hands of the right man.” “So what happened when she showed up unannounced?” Tommy shrugged. “You’re the expert.” He motioned toward the door. “Lead “Madeline wanted to leave, but she the way.” didn’t want me to drive her. She had no cab fair, and the busses had stopped running at “What about your daughter? Won’t six.” Tommy waited for the rest. “Rochelle she wonder where you’ve gone?” suggested that I take a walk around the “My daughter will miss her crystal lagoon. She offered to help Madeline with the glasses before she misses me. Besides, my supper dishes before she gave her a ride granddaughter will let her know.” home.” “Your granddaughter?” Hank resisted the urge to glance back at the young couple on the park bench. “By Tommy turned back to the lagoon. the time I’d returned from the walk they’d The lovers were zipping up their parkas. The uncorked a bottle of Burgundy, changed into woman looked over to where the two old men lingerie, and started watching a chick flick on had gone. She hesitated and then she waved my 60” Sony.” He shook his head. “Rochelle again. is an amazing woman. When my ex-wife let herself in this morning, Peg found the three of “My granddaughter,” he pointed. us curled up by the fire.” The front door to Hank’s house “And?” opened and a beautiful brunette stuck her head out. “It’s about time you got back. “Rochelle suggested that I take Breakfast is ready.” Rochelle recognized another walk while she made breakfast for Tommy from his last appearance on Live with the four of us.” Kelly and Michael. “Just the person we need to work things out. There are plenty of “I can see why you’d want to marry scrambled eggs to go around, and I’ve her.” uncorked a lovely Shiraz.” “She is definitely a problem solver.”

Hank hesitated. “Since your wife died, do you like traveling alone, or would you prefer company?”

“Definitely company. I have great people skills, but I have a terrible time 18

The Smell of the Leaves Rosemount Trattoria

Anne Britting Oleson

I want to say it was raining. Was it?

Sweet and sour is the smell of nostalgia, Yet when we sat at the scarred table as one memory after another in the back, between a dusty ficus flutters its fiery orange way and the Coke machine, the better to study to the hard dead ground of autumn. the menu board over the counter,

I don't remember being wet,

I gather the leaves to me, as many I don't remember shedding jackets. as I can hold in my palms, examining each ravenously, The Italian lady, round and dark-haired, reliving the greenness, wanting it back. tumbled her words at you, waving them

I trace the veins with a trembling finger, onward with butterfly hands, much as I have the lifeblood and you nodded and nodded, flowing inside my wrist. smiled and suggested the fish.

Looks a dive, you'd said, as

Desire. I press my face we'd approached the narrow storefront, into my treasures, breathing the faded green awning, but that delicate line between it's fast and filling and cheap. ripeness and rot, wondering why the most gorgeous of all things Now the proprietress sets are more often than not the saddest. thick white plates before us,

a slab of fish, peas rolling

like pin balls, and even here,

on this tape-mended chair, where I'm trying to remember not

to shift my fork from hand to hand,

I'm memorizing everything:

19

the brawny arms of the cook If You Find No Poem (V3) Michael Lee Johnson behind the counter, the two men If you find in coveralls buying cannoli, no poem on the scuffed green and white floor tiles, your doorstep in the morning, the lazy circles of the overhead fan— no paper, no knock on your door, your life poorly edited so I can hold onto this, always, but no broken dashes or injured meter- what this lunch was like, if you do not wear white with you, tapping my elbow, satin dresses late in life admonishing me to clean my plate. embroidered with violet flowers on the collar; nor do you have burials daily (for Stephen) across main street-

if no one whispers in your ear, Emily Dickinson-

you feel alone- but not reclusive- the sand child still sleeping in your eyes- wiping your tears away-

if you find no poem on your doorstep- you know you are not from New England.

20

Scotties Your pursuit of light eschewed the shadows

Sandra Anfang my need to mine the darkness

for the rich humus of pain

I remember the pair of Scotty dogs scattered us to distant poles. we once bought in a bathroom vending machine How powerful the repulsion that day mother was in a good mood. the equal and opposite reaction

to the attraction. I can hear the grinding of gears in the machine's steel jaw the turnstile groaning as it released the cellophane packet into my eager hands: a pair of magnets gripping two pups, one white, one black.

How surprised I felt at the force of their pull foot to foot they married tail to tail repelled each another as if an invisible shield had been wedged between them.

I wondered if the colored bathrooms sold these too if they even housed vending machines besides the nickel Modess boxes…because

we remind me of those Scotties famished hearts tunnel deep into each other’s arms our lust for love that bordered on addiction. 21

Tic Heard In Quick Passing Richard Fein It flickers with the quiet of a browning incandescent bulb She is at least six months along. And his eyes dreamily follow an iridescent no lightning overture announces the tiny butterfly. wince at the corner of her eye. Her belly is a curved fullness. Her face oh so It scans the crowd for danger pretty. And he holds on tight to his earth mother a periscope gone mad with vigilance goddess, while strolling through this narrow botanical a gift from her brain, the red outline of her garden path. mother’s palm June red roses blaze bright. But she is biting her bloody lip, welding body and soul and no dreamy smile is on her face. This phalanx of two ignores me as I approach. in the mine shaft of that house of pain. How can I pass by them? But suddenly she pushes his arm aside and does an awkward pirouette away from No more beloved canary was ever lifted in its him. iron cage I pass through this broken unity. That iridescent butterfly flies from his vision set down among the detritus of imploded to mine rage and dances directly in front of me. Behind me I hear a whisper. Behind me I hear left to weather the tests and accusations soft sobs. as the oxygen grew thinner in that "Don, the baby isn't yours, isn't yours." cylinder of pain.

Later, she would wear it proudly a hard-won badge; it helped her sort the worthy from the ignoble let them know she’d been selected for the one-time honor of being exactly who she was.

22

Branding The Rain Wendy T. Carlisle It rains, has rained, for five days, our sheets I watch too much television, although I do get perpetually damp. The rain does a slow a lot from the news like last night on 60 release, sounds like palming Saran Wrap, Minutes when that actor said he looks for the sounds like a love noise, the plash like the day when the signifier “black” disappears: no movement of fingers between thighs, like the more Black History Month. No Black whoosh of a silk cami dropping, like the Power. The language of separation will not onomatopoetic word for slip. Too wet to go exist; will have passed to the place where outside, too nasty to walk, we choose sex colored water fountains now abide. I see too while the weather ushers in a new season, its many movies too, eat up empty afternoons leaf and puddle, we listen to the push and with the flickering faces of loners and cowboy suck of wind, the systole and diastole of lovers, alternate, silent, fearful of the price of spring. being different which will be a needless, unnecessary fear in the new world of no designations, without pigeonholes. I think of this future, a novel kindness of alike and with. I call to it and know it as a better friend, a peace without epithet. And I only sometimes wonder how we will identify and misidentify ourselves, how we will hunger to be loved for who we are. What will we do without labels in that silence we do not now recognize which may only later seem to be our name?

23

Signs in a Hot Climate BORRIS

In and out of a southern childhood the signs Chad McClendon of drunks are ever-present, but gray-faced fall The Master always likes his meals hot- is the best season for them when stoned PIPING HOT! He’ll tell Vaan Strudel every misunderstandings, big as billboards, scrape night, night after night. He’ll tell Vaan Strudel, across town on the keen edge of a rainstorm, “Vaan Strudel! Give me my meals PIPING soaking the lawn, unearthing a stashed bottle HOT!” Vaan Strudel likes to listen to the or two. Each Halloween northern birds blow master. Vaan Strudel likes to serve the dark back to us, wet & messy, gulls hunch on the master of torment! Vaan Strudel is a good jetty & elephant ears cluster up to the chain servant to the Master. link bowing to the rain. Vaan Strudel sees the teensy American Everywhere the same boozy weather, rain girl with her hair the color of blood, Vaan outside and in the café, a table of women, Strudel can sense her dislike of Vaan Strudel – back from the Fairfield cattle sale, hoists Vaan Strudel doesn’t like her either. So, Vaan tequila and faces down three dusty flagmen, Strudel is sneaking in back now, to let in the drinking Jim Beam and whispering across the Master of Vaan Strudels’ soul, Vaan Strudel aisle. The men consider the treachery of helps in the master. Vaan Strudel always says women times three. The women simmer and to the master “Master, Vaan Strudel thinks giggle. The tables put up with each other like none look finer than you! With your gold first cousins; everybody chews and stares. ringed eyes, and your billowing black tail, and your four paws of perfection!” Stop! Burma Shave! RR Xing! Impeach Earl The master always says to Vaan Strudel, Warren!!! I’ve seen the signs. I know the “I can kill you, I can kill you.” Vaan Strudel names of hometown birds and Bourbon believes the master; Vaan Strudel believes brands. In any climate, I can spot the 5-finger that Master wouldn’t even need to use his two spread at the end of a buzzard’s wing, the sign sharp and pointy teeth. Not the Master. The of something dead. Master could kill Vaan Strudel with his little paw if Master chose it to be so. Vaan Strudel will help the Master get blood tonight, so Van Strudel will, so Vaan Strudel will. In walks the master from the blackness, always with the “I can kill you, I can kill you.” Vaan Strudel helps the master survey the store, and Vaan Strudel can hear the winds picking up outside. “Master, the storm will be here quickly. The power will die as soon as the storm comes. Do not worry,

Master. Vaan Strudel will see to it.”

“I can kill you. I can kill you,” says the raccoon. Vaan Strudel waits with the master.

#

I step outside and look at the night sky, it is as clear as crystal. I scoff. This is supposed to be tornado weather? I walk back inside the 24

store, contemplating a quiz in a magazine I Viktor was quick to start hitting on me, he had found under one of the registers. When I usually is. flirt, am I naturally witty, or painfully comedic? Indeed. As if any quiz could ever define me. I “Yenna, tell me. How is your mama and papa?” am an enigma, and this particular enigma was getting bored. So good for me it was then, that I give my usual forced smile, he was I was getting to lock up the store early – we already laughing. He never seemed to tire of had to clean the floors tonight. So I ring out this joke. “I don’t know, I’ll tell you when I the last customer, and escort him to the door. find out who they are.” “Good night to you too sir, thanks for “Haha, you funny joker! I tell you, I shopping at The Castle.” I say, holding the adopt you as my daughter anytime.” door for the liquor endowed man heading Something in his smile made me wish he towards his beamer. would have a heart attack. With a din akin to atom bombs With perfect timing our night manager dropping, a loud, vulgar yellow van careens emerges from the back room. Not only was he into the parking lot. Music, I suppose you six feet of pure testosterone (need I say he could call it such, fills the night with awful towered over Viktor?), he also had a backside intrusion. which made me writhe. ‘C’mon baby light my fire, is it weird that I always think of that song “Cue the god forsaken Russian cleaning when I see him? Whenever I think of Brody, crew.” I considered not letting them in, I knew it would make their mustaches twitch—that that’s his song. was just the way with Russian cleaning crews, Brody talks to Viktor, he’s terse, and he their mustaches always twitched when they outright ignored my ‘hello’ as he went back to were flustered. work. Boy still makes me want to dance. Oh well, I still have eight hours of shift left to try “Yenna!” The tiny man with caterpillar eyebrows yells to me. “So good seeing you!” and woo him. I put on my best I’m getting paid eight # dollars an hour for this bull smile. Two hours have passed up front, here I “Hello, Viktor.” The name is still Jenna. sit on my conveyor belt, wondering why in the blue blazes of hell these guys just can’t His personal sidekick, Karlof—you ring out their own crap. “You don’t need a know, pronounced Car-Lawv. See? I pay cashier on a night like tonight.” I get up, not attention to how names sound. Anyway, wanting to be here any longer. I walk through Karlof steps out of the van, dragging his the aisles, browsing really, nothing more. I buffer machine. He hails me like I’m a taxi cab could swear, two eyes just gazed out at me driver. from behind the kosher dills. No. I tell myself it was just my imagination. “Jenna, it’s not “Evening, Karlof.” I watch the other two even 4 AM, it’s far too early to be suffering Russians exit the van with their cleaning from hallucinations.” I scolded myself again, equipment, and remember not to breathe as wishing that I had brought my iPod. they pass me. “I’ll be around front if you guys need me.” I say, watching as a new face in the Screep! Screep! Screep! Russian cleaning crew sets up a mop bucket. The usual sounds of the Russians “Vaan Strudel!” Viktor starts yelling at scraping up some gunk off the floors. I peek the Russian who was setting up the mop around an end cap, and see a Russian in a bucket, I let them work out their differences. long black cleaning mask, I don’t remember his name—mostly due to the fact that he 25

looks like he could be Luke Skywalker’s dad. “I was going to check out what that He waves to me all the same, all these guys scream was in the back, actually – Brody. want a piece of me. They can’t even speak my Maybe someone fell because of the blackout. name correctly, but I dunno. They want If you want, you could come with me?” I ask, something, but I’m not sure I can give them hoping my cute and innocent act will anything, not when I’m dreaming of him. I convince him I’m some naïve girl looking for dunno. Crazy mustaches. some action behind the cereal backstock skids. Just then, a huge cacophony split the night’s muzak, as a huge clang is heard from He seems to ponder me for a moment, the roof. The wind must really be picking up, as if he just realized I was there. “Okay, let’s the storm is howling like my grandmother’s go.” He says to me coldly, ignoring the teacup Chihuahua. Speaking of devilish babbling Russians as they begin to mop the beasts, there are those two eyes again, at the perimeter. “This way, Henna.” end of the aisle. What the hell are they? My heart melts, he almost called me by I don’t get to find out, because at that my right name. “It’s Jenna.” I say, my voice moment everything goes black—and a rising angelically. scream is heard from the back of the store. It is normally a very quick walk to the Seconds later, all the Russian voices are filling backroom, I keep stealing looks at Brody as I the store with their strange song…prayer…God knows what hymns. kept up with him. The walk ended too soon— as I knew it must—and of course, there was “VIKTOR! Shut UP!” I scream, “The rest the body. Oh Lord! The body! I gape at a of you too!” Castle worker I didn’t know the name of, does that make me horrible? The guy is sprawled The emergency generators kick in and on the floor, in a pool of crimson. The ladder The Castle is full of light once again. rests nearby on its side, surely he must have The Russians are at my side at once, my fallen. “God, I thought everyone but us was knights in skanky armor. Well, three of them out.” are at my side anyway. “We are sorrying, “He’s got bite marks on his neck.” Brody Yenna.” Viktor states. “But it says in Old says upon inspection. Country, when lights go out during tornado weather, we must give praise to our “What?” I ask. ancestors! It must be so!” “Bite marks. On. His. Neck.” Brody rips “Yeah, I can only see one problem with off the top two buttons of his grey shirt, and that though, Viktor old chum. We’re in pulls out a small crucifix. “We must be dealing Kentucky. Do you know how far Old Country with a vampire!” He says with gusto. is from here?” “Um…no.” I look closer at the guy’s “Unbeliever! Do not question our belief! body, fighting back the bile that’s rising to my Our religion is JUST!” throat. “That’s actually just a birthmark I think.” I lightly touch the brown spots on the “Sure, sure. Do whatever you want, dude’s neck. “Yep, just two big dots close to just…I’m going to check in the back.” each other. Sorry, no Brody the Vampire “Everything alright here gentlemen?” Slayer for us.” I say sarcastically. Brody inquires, walking up and ignoring me. Brody storms off, him and his tight end. “Yes, everything is being fine, Brody! Way to blow it, I could see myself revisiting We are cleaning like mouses before winter!” this moment in the near future. As I’m Karlof says enthusiastically. 26

standing there brooding, that new Russian stones. He looked to be in about the same comes by wheeling a mop bucket. amount of pain. “Vaan Strudel is needing by, is cleaning “Can you get up please? I have to make a up the messes.” I notice that he completely phone call. Some guys’ dead in the …” ignores the huge mess of blood and body. The Russian looked up at me, his hands Only then do I realize, oh no—I should clenched around his neck, his bleeding neck. probably call the cops. Seems like a normal thing to do. I’m not totally panicked, it seems “Bu…bu…behind you!” he falls to the like he just fell off the ladder. Anyway, floor completely, and I heeded his final normal. A normal person calls an ambulance warning, just in time to see Vaan Strudel with or the cops during an accident. They don’t run his mop bucket full of blood. He must have off. Well, much more normal than found a mess to clean up. It sloshes out the complaining about messes while bypassing a sides and onto the floor. body, anyway. “Clean store is happy store! Master I pick up the phone, sure that someone always wants his meals PIPING HOT! Haha! should be alerted to this. “You won’t get Vaan Strudel is happy to help!” answer, Vaan Strudel knows.” Vaan Strudel says to me, almost sycophantically. “Is dead. It is at this moment that I decide to get Phone is dead. Like emergency exit doors. on the intercom. I jump to the checkout stand Like man on floor. Maybe your cellular phone, and pick up the phone. “BRODY!” I yell. “This enh?” Just as he predicted, the phone was Russian weirdo is freaking me out! Help! Help dead. Likely knocked out by the storm, (or me!” that thing that got the grocery boy—shut up! The Russians aside from Vaan and Show sensitivity!) Newly dead corpsy guy all start chanting. “It “Yeah, well it so happens I don’t have being fine rush to clean like school bus! In the my cell phone tonight, it’s being serviced.” night that is so fine!” Viktor’s and Karlof’s voices ring throughout the store, ignorant of “Hah! Hah! Ha! HA! Then maybe Master the terror I was feeling. Would they ever can service you.” Vaan Strudel says, in a high cease their maniacal praises? cackling voice. His head flies back and he waves his mop crazily in the air, his mustache Vaan had refocused on me, now that he twitching all the while. had collected the excess blood that had So, I make a hasty getaway, those crazy spilled from his coworker. Full bucket is Russians are always on about something. happy bucket, I think morbidly. Maybe the pay phone outside will work. “Vaan Strudel! Master says, Vaan Splish! Splosh! Splash! Strudel! Get me a bride! A young bride! A fine catch! Miss Yenna, Vaan Strudel only wants to The Russians are mopping, unaware of help the Master! You must marry him!” He the body in back. I watch my back as I head swings his bloody mop my way, and I run like towards the front of the store. That Vaan guy hell was after me. really freaked me out a little. Bodies were one thing, they couldn’t hurt you… but weirdo’s I didn’t mean to bump into his chest, but like Vaan? Heck, they could do a girl a lotta the next thing I knew, Brody’s strong arms damage. As I reach the front door I see one of are wrapping around me. It’s like magic, his the Russians hunched over—the Vader mask aroma fills my nostrils and served as a surely—I remember my foster dad hunched stimulant, I felt none could harm me now. Or over like that when he was passing kidney at the very least, I felt I could die happy. 27

“You!” He cries, pointing at Vaan what he is using to revive me. A towel that is Strudel. “You have brought this into my store, greasy black. the blood of the innocent cries out to me! I will have you! To me, you deformed hellion!” “You clean with that thing! Ugh!” I groan. Brody reaches in his shirt and pulls out his crucifix again, and withdraws a box cutter “Shh. You talk too much.” He says. from his pocket. The duel that was to commence would surely What a pleasant miracle! He actually be remembered by all who witnessed it, I said something personal about me! Oh however, do not. I faint. wonders never cease! # “What is happening?” I ask. I’m strapped to a fruit cart, hovering “I will tell you. An evil Raccoon vampire above me is the most depraved looking and his man servant have overtaken the raccoon I had ever seen! Suddenly, the store. I fear that Viktor and Karlof are dead by shining eyes from the dill pickles make sense! the beast now. Their babbling has ceased. I He speaks to me like a lover, whispering into am sure that they were innocent in the my ear, his whiskers tickling my face. ordeal. I caught sight of the beast earlier, as he was salivating over their jugulars. I hope “I can marry you. I can marry you.” It’s my language is not too coarse for your naïve all he ever says. and sensitive ears.” The dream shifts. “Not at all! I would have you speak until they were bleeding!” I only then thought of I’m drowning, there is water all around my words. me! All I can see is red. The water is red, and the only life preservers are bound in human “No time for that now, come, we must flesh! Human flesh with two little marks side find the monster.” He pulls me up in a by side…bleeding birthmarks! The horror I sweeping arch and I am at his side at once. feel echo through the next string of horrible minutes. “Is that Vaan guy dead?” my lip trembles, wondering what steps my hero took It shifts again. to save our lives. I’m staring at Brody, who is wearing a “He’s locked in the meat department, paper bag over his torso, he wields a green under lock and key obviously. I thought he and rather large (not to mention oddly needed to get the chip off his shoulder, so I shaped) box cutter in one hand. He is introduced him to our meat chipper. shielding himself with a gallon of milk. He’s fighting with Vaan Strudel, or rather, the I feel myself grow red. “Goodness save ghostly form of Vaan Strudel. They exchange us.” blows, and only when Vaan is dispelled does “Goodness took the night off.” He says Brody mount me. icily as we walk the store, creeping around Which is, of course, when I wake up. corners. I could feel the heat rolling off him, Imagine my surprise when I see that Brody so why was my body so cold? Was it the fear? really has mounted me, I feel water pouring “How will we fight him?” I look water onto my brow. longingly into his brown eyes. “Brody, oh what happened? I remember He pulls a box cutter from his shirt you shouting at Vaan Strudel, but where is pocket. “I trust you know how to use one of your milk shield? Your strangely phallic box these?” cutter?” I ask, my eyes growing wide as I spy 28

“Do I ever! I can work one of these “Tsk, tsk, you Americans know no until…” manners.” Borris says plainly. “Splendid! Then take this ruler and “You speak of manners, yet you sold whittle me a stake! There is no time to lose!” your soul to the devil! And for what? The He says, pulling a ruler from his pocket. powers of the immortals?!” Brody makes sure his box cutter blade was extended all the way. So I took his offered ruler and begin to He caresses the handle in ways he would whittle like my life depended on it. And as I surely never caress me. pass the drained bodies of Karlof and Viktor (Yenna! Yenna! – Viktor still called to me from “Actually, Satan has a new leasing the grave. I’ll adopt you, then marry you, we option. But it’s all the same. I inherited the have a great number of children!) I don’t feel powers of the Immortal Ones. Now, I will bad about the kick I give to Viktor. have your blood! For I will be sated!” Borris growls. I hold out the stake to Brody as I finished. “How does it look?” I asked, “I am for you!” Brody calls, as he rushes desperate for his praise. forward to engage in battle with the dreadful raccoon. “Not nearly as good as I do, but it’s a start.” He says, putting a mirror into his The raccoon was inches away from pocket. Brody at once, as they fight and dance about the store, each looking for an opening. Borris I feel the heat flowing back into my latches onto Brody’s hand, yet Brody is able body, the work he had me do was helping. to throw him off. Maybe it was shock? “Do you have everything in those pockets?” I “Cry off your quest for my blood, and I ask. may let you live!” Brody screamed. “Haha, not your hand. But now is hardly “Never! Now feel my rage!” The raccoon the time! Behold! The beast!” He points to the was at Brody’s heels, tearing savagely Raccoon, a ghastly creature of enormous size. through his denim jeans. Brody kicks hard, and I couldn’t help but laugh—it looked like a The raccoon, yes—the terror of my deranged folk dance. dream to be sure, a raccoon – standing there on its hind legs. Borris rebounds off a shelf, and he quickly recovers from Brody’s kick. He upsets “Declare yourself, heathen beast!” a cereal box in frustration. “You are a strong Brody yells. human! How delicious your blood must be! “I am Borris Raccuul, of Transylwanya. I But I bet your friend’s will taste all the see you have dispatched my manservant.” His sweeter!” He squeaks horribly and rushes speech was very good, considering he was towards me. foreign, and you know—a raccoon? “Brody! “ I scream in fright, as I run to “I did. My, but you are a foul little thing.” the shelves with nowhere to go but up. Brody says threateningly. Brody slashes at the raccoon again with “Transylwanya?” I giggle, despite my the box cutter, and with the speed of an angel, fear which rose like bile to my throat. “Don’t he draws down the sharpened ruler. you mean Transylvania?” “I can kill you. I can kill you.” The raccoon wheezes, his yellowed fangs bared. 29

“BRODY!” I cried to my hero, pleading Word Decay for him to save me. Heather M. Browne

Brody plants the ruler into the back of The words sat putrid the demonic creature, ending its centuries’ Clenched between tooth and tongue long plague upon mankind. Boring holes “I can kill you…..I can kill you…” My thoughts lick Acidic I am quite sure those are Borris’ last Cancerous tongue words. My body devours self Brody finds us a way out of the store Careful when I floss and just in time too. For the store is smitten Careful in excavation by God, in a mighty bolt of lightning. The Debris entire store catches on fire and the smoke Decayed words, thoughts rises and twists high into the night. I find Chip comfort in Brody’s embrace, and as the winds continued to howl, we turn our backs on the Castle, knowing we could never go back.

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Accelerating ARTHRITIC ANNIE

She saw the car coming David Spicer Moments before the crash Wishing to rip out today’s page Arthritic Annie is a saint. I’ve told her From her treasured diary countless times. She smiles at me with quiet Paper sheets crumple easier than steel grace and jade eyes. On this occasion she Less pressure on flesh knows I’m happy, for she can read my mind. I believe she’s lived many lives on many Thinking off unwashed dishes planets. She won’t talk to me. I don’t know Soccer games missed why, but she doesn’t need to speak. She Her hand-penned story flipping back knows what I’m going to do before I do it. Page by page, day and hour When she wants something from me, she The braking winds fingering them fast touches me on my knee with her long hands, Racing and hungry and as I stand up from my red easy chair, she Births and babies leads me to the computer room, where she Marriage, loss, her 7th birthday looks up at me in her black and white body, carefully sits on the stool at the window, and Struck upon impact purrs. Watching her life reversed All the hands reaching, all the hugs offered It was she, who pulled away Her foot always pressing the pedal, accelerating

Escaping the crash It was her fault She hears screaming As a siren cries Red

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CLOUD Contentment Scott Archer Jones Driving each morning to work, I notice a servant walking her mistress by a I, Joseph, am King of all I survey. The lake. The mistress runs on the grass around steam roils off the water and into the dry the lake. One day I stop and ask the servant crisp air over the village, anointing my what breed of dog her mistress is. The subjects like incense. I loll back, silver hair servant, an attractive woman with blonde streaming from my temples. They always say braids hanging down the back of her that I look like Leonard Bernstein. The turquoise running outfit, answers, A white principal difference is that I am tone deaf, and retriever. It’s a rare breed. She’s beautiful, I he is dead. reply. She’s a pain in the ass. Why’s that? I ask. I’m tired of picking up after the bitch, she It’s been a perfect day for me, so far. frowns with a sour look at the dog, who My contentment stretches out before me. I scampers up alongside her servant. She pants turned sixty-eight last week and the proper and looks at me with a benign expression, number of people paid obeisance – this I beautiful in a white coat that I stroke. She remembered at the moment of awakening. likes you better than me. Here, you take her, The market opened up in New York, she says, handing me the leash as she breaks rendering life even easier. I arose at seven into a jog that increases speed until she and shaved away all my body hair, taking due disappears behind the trees. I’m shocked. I care with the razor. I then drove here to the look at the dog and she looks at me and gym. After the tanning bed, I visited with smiles. What shall I call you? I ask the dog. She Becky of the Black Tights and attended a spin stares up at the sky and barks. class, followed by the easy version of water aerobics. Now, here in the hot tub float three of my friends and a ravishing stranger. I

recline in the hot water, sense the morning’s strain of body maintenance melt into liquid magic and into camaraderie, flawed as it is. We all paid the price, spent our hour or more panting and heaving. In that shaky, ragged feeling from the workouts, we’d retreated from the fitness center to our hot tub outside.

To my regret, our stranger rises up, water

cascading from her hair and body, and in the twenty-degree weather flip-flops for the door. She’s quite young, about forty-five, and I undergo that stirring I call the Viagra Aftershock. I’ve felt it several times this morning. Across from me sits my old friend, Carl. Besides being the best orthodontist in Taos, he is the original comb-over man. I’ve stared at that comb-over for twenty-five years. Now though, it has parted from his scalp and flies away as a crumpled up wing

out over his left ear, angling off towards the Taos Mountain that looms above us. The Viagra and my hypertension medicine make a

32

potent mix and they have improved my unwrinkled skin. But I have a true fantasy life – the drugs help me see his appreciation and understanding of women.” thoughts. A cartoon text balloon forms over Carl’s head. It reads, ‘Just this once.’ Carl’s Mara, the fourth friend in the hot tub, voice comes through the steam. “Let’s troop interrupts us, once again about her mother. over to the Plaza Café after we shower. I want She and Carl are burdened by family, unlike a five-thousand-calorie salad and a Pinot Noha and I. Instead of flying free, they drag Grigio.” The bubble flashes ‘Bacon, cheese – their aged parents along behind. lots of cheese.’ Mara is Irish-fair, and as we say, beat- I count nods of assent all around. I all-to-hell. Even for seventy, she would be announce, “And so it shall be.” Beside me, my rough and hard – and she's sixty. She had Egyptian beauty Noha stirs, irritated by my plaited her hair, really iron gray but dyed to patronizing tone. Her thought balloon reads, its original red, up onto her head, but it has 'Really, Joseph. Shut up.' She perches upon my begun to fall in the steam. The balloon over right hand as I drape my arm around behind her reads ‘I’m twisted off!’ She leans over to her. Her delicious bottom presses up against Noha and touches her knee under the my palm. She is a full and charming woman, bubbling water. I believe Mara must have with beautiful skin and black hair, long and been a lesbian, before she gave up sex for luxurious. Her eyes are huge and brown. I feel bitterness. her weight shift as she leans forward and her “Noha,” she says. I watch the bubble thigh presses into mine. Noha is our cougar. spell out, ‘My angel.’ Mara pauses, a claim for We hear of all of her encounters, real and our attention. “Your Mother and Dad are imagined, with the young men that she – well dead, aren’t they?” – hunts. “Yes, Mara. You know I flew home to “Philip was my trainer this morning. Egypt two years ago when my mother passed We did lunges on the half ball. Each time, as I on.” moved from the floor onto the ball, you know,” and she glances over at me and flares “That’s right. Lucky you.” her eyes. They are enchanting eyes, like fireworks. “He'd steady me on each lunge. At Noha shakes her head, a furrow first he gripped my waist, but then he moved chasing sadness across her forehead. “Mara, to my knee, to keep me from drifting. At least, that's cruel. I loved my mother. I miss her he started at my knee. By the end, his hands every day.” had moved up my leg – just below, nearly there. I became all flushed. He's so strong.” Mara's thought balloon reads, 'Typical.' She snorts, an ugly sound of I say, “Noha, they are always strong, mockery. “Be glad you got out when you were or you wouldn’t be interested.” She squirms young. I remember the old joke about life just that little bit and my loins tingle. I have begins when you're forty sleeping with had that ample plump dessert – and I would twenty.” go back for more. We all chuckle for her, but she doesn’t “Yes, Joseph. You're not jealous of want a laugh – she wants a tirade. “I always youth, are you?” Her bubble indicates, 'Time thought life began when your parents died.” for another face lift, my friend.' “But Mara,” I say. “Your mom lives in a “Unlikely, sweetheart. They have home in Kansas. Surely she can’t be ruining stamina, but I have guile. They have a certain your life from there?” charm – not to mention supple and 33

“She expects a call most every day. Carl heaves himself up by grasping And I have to visit, every couple of months.” my hand and jerking. Water cascades from his meager shoulders and off his pendulous belly. Carl's bubble displays, ‘My turn! My His balloon reads, ‘You'll be dead in a month.’ turn!’ Carl stutters when he's in a hurry. “My My mouth drops. He shakes his head over me, mo mo mom lives over in Arroyo Seco and it’s dripping down into my iconic face. a lot of work, taking care of the details she can’t handle anymore. WhWhWho would He sloshes to the tub edge, grabs his have believed I’d be babysitting when I towel. “Mara, I promise you a drink right now. turned sixty-three?” Come with me to the Café and we’ll eat spinach salad with fried cheese croutons, Mara's bubble reads, 'Who gives a with sliced egg and hot bacon dressing. We shit, Carl.' She ratchets back up. “Mom will can even split an order of truffle fries. That live to a hundred and ten. She looks like it and a margarita will hold the Living Dead at already.” bay.”

Noha tries to defuse the so- I stand, turn for my towel. The wind at unpleasant rant, “It’s only natural, Mara. They twenty degrees cuts through me. I shiver like took care of us. So we take care of them.” the damned.

“No, it’s unnatural. Old people should It starts slow, a perception of fullness, croak in their late seventies, not hang on-and- a distension of the belly. I get so the wine on ruining our glory times. All those drugs doesn't work – I experience nausea after, and and treatments, they drag it all out. It’s just sugary desserts give me intense diarrhea. My pathetic, that’s what it is, a horror.” Mara’s back hurts. She hovers across from me, my cartoon bubble shows, ‘I could kill the old Doctor. She wears a new perfume – its high- bitch.’ dollar scent wafting towards me. But I don't care. Not today. “Okay, Joan, I can take it. Is it I think, who wouldn't hold on to the a brain tumor?” My ancient joke. last bitter second? A bed you're dying in is better than the casket on the other side. I say, She flashes me that beautiful smile, “Mara, it’s not that much of your time. You the one so nice to wake up to. “Joseph, you have a great life here with us and I don’t think wouldn't be peeking down my lab coat and you miss much. With a butched-up body like blouse if it were a brain tumor. However, it's yours, you’ll outlast us all, much less your definitely something. I don't like your weight mother. Don’t worry so much about it.” loss – I know you think you worked off those love handles by yourself, but your legs and She says with raised eyebrows, “Why arms look, well, spindly to me. Far too thin.” A thank you, Joseph. That makes me feel all cartoon forms over her head, 'You look like better.” The balloon reads, ‘Screw you, you shit.' old lecher.’ “Then I shall return to lifting weights “You’ll see, darling,” says our and guzzling growth inducers, dear. I shall delectable Noha. “This weekend will be our bulk up enough to please you.” usual round, as Joseph says, of parties and laughter. I promise you at least a good meal She ducks her head to the paperwork. and lots of wine.” I see her bubble waver up “And your blood work isn't right. You're over her head, half-formed, murmuring, 'A hyperglycemic, with some ketone buildup in long afternoon with my trainer. A private your urine. I'd swear you were diabetic if you workout.' had any history of smoking and obesity. Then there's that back pain.” 34

“Admit it, Joannie. You're puzzled. A Ridiculous, playing the role, she nods. beautiful mind in a beautiful body, but once “Biopsy. You're taking it okay.” again I baffle you.” I know different. I am a little man She chuckles, but she does it for show. inside my godlike head, screaming away. My “I'll write you a referral. I want you to see an smart phone delivered the web-page news old classmate of mine in Santa Fe – he's the days ago. Only a one-in-four chance to live a best. He'll order the workup, and we'll find year. I summon a smile – it feels plastic on my out what we're dealing with. I'll call ahead – I face. I work harder, try for sincerity. “I am want you in quick.” Her bubble pops up, less worried than you think. I've always had 'Cancer. It's always cancer.' luck on my side.”

I am bloody cold lying here in this She leans forward to take my hand. hospital bed. Off and on for two weeks they “I'm sure it'll all work out. How long before have scanned me, probed my orifices, they get the results?” Her red hair floats inquired about the health of my sphincters. forward across my arm. Ghostly. They have whittled all of my dignity away. Now they have thrust a hollow sword into my Her kindness makes me want to back, through my intestine and into a mass smash at her, and I would too, if I were not so the CAT scan detected and the MRI paints like tired. At least with unkind words. “It's about a a bird's nest in violet hues. I have a foreign week. But they will peer at it through the body lodged within me, a frightening plague microscope before it goes off to the lab. That of my own cells. should tell them something.”

Mara sits beside me. She has driven “And then you'll know.” down from Taos, a two hour journey, by I try on the condescending grin. Silly herself. She actually appears to care. At least woman. “Oh, no. They won't tell me. If they she has all the right behaviors. My cartoon were wrong and it's not malignant, they bubbles have failed me, so I don't know what would have to explain later. And I would sue she really thinks. Probably ruined by the for mental anguish.” extra drugs. “Surely not. They'll tell you.” She hitches forward in her chair. Now I will have to suffer through the explanations. My turn to pat her hand. I know the “How big's the mass, Joseph?” She appears conventions. “I have become a cog in the distraught – amusing. machine, Mara.” The little screaming man is louder now – I think he wants out. “Oh, the size of an orange. Perhaps a grapefruit by today. Of course, it is not a She slips her hand out from under simple round thing. Rather messy, tangled up mine. “So it's a week. Do you stay here?” with my pancreas. And gut.” “Oh God no, not here. But I have a Her eyebrows arch and her pupils room at the Residence Inn. The drive back dilate. “Pancreas!” The bitch already knows, and forth to Taos, it's too much.” from Noha, but we must pretend. She frowns. Her lips have those “Yes, Mara, we all know about vertical trench-marks of a woman who pancreatic cancer. That's why they thrust that doesn't care what she looks like. “Joseph, you huge, painful needle into me.” I hold up my should have told us. We could drive you.” hands, eighteen inches apart. “A monster.” 35

“Hah. You think that I drive myself? “No one at home, Noha, no one to No, Carl chauffeurs me. But speaking of back shuffle my bedpans or stick morphine patches and forth . . .” on me. Carl took my cats over to his mother, and the house sits empty.” “Yes, sweetie?” “Can I watch the place for you, water “They'll check me out in a couple of plants?” hours. Can you give me a lift to the hotel? Drive me back to my modest suite, tuck me I nod. “That would be lovely, dear. Or into bed for the night?” better yet, throw them all in the trunk and take them to your place. You can have them.” I watch her grin, the first genuine thing today. “Why, I believe you are trying to She tosses both hands up in protest. get me in the sack, you old fart.” “Oh, but you'll be coming home.”

I can feel the burning in my eyes. “Noha, you saw the sign on the Tears want to form. I hate it when she is right. building. I'll not be coming home.” I ache for a woman's coddling, even a burned- out grizzled lesbo's. At least a distraction. Her face collapses like a melting milk chocolate. She didn't have to confront the imminence of death as long as it went unsaid. I have spoiled it. No chemo, no radiation, no surgery. Oh, to be Mara's parent, lying in a Kansas She dabs at her eyes with a pink nursing home, waiting for my centennial so kleenex. “How are they treating you here?” many years away! Instead I lie in this unimagined terrain – hospice. A morphine- I see no need to swamp her with infused wait for the cancer to explode out of complaints about the service, service that my abdomen and vomit across the room. A cannot matter compared to my Big Event. wait for blood to cascade out of my rectum “They're quite kind. Sit beside me, beloved.” and float me off the sheets and onto the floor. Not in the chair. She perches on the I hear a skritching in my ears, like dog's claws edge of the bed, bundles my hand up in both on the linoleum. It is my anger. of hers. She presses her tush up against my Her head eases round the door, side and my glance flickers there before hesitant. Noha is still the most beautiful proceeding up past her breasts. She gazes woman I have ever taken to bed. But now, down into my face. “We've had happier times, when I see her, I see what I will lose. Joseph.”

“Are you awake?” I clear my throat. “This morning I was thinking about our trip to Florida, five years She among all still deserves a smile ago.” from me. “Come in, come in. You'll relieve this continuous tedium.” She has the sweetest smile. “All that lovely sand and the sun.” She leans across the bed, touches her lips to my forehead. I had imagined they I chuckle, for her benefit. “You didn't would be hot, like her blood, but they are cool want to spoil your complexion. Instead you and dry. She asks, “Why are you all the way lay under the cabana.” down here in Albuquerque?” “And you burned bright pink, racing around in the sun.” 36

“But the pain of sunburn did not I stare at her, the part in her hair, her inhibit my performance.” head dropped, concentrating on me, on this thing we share again. “That is so very nice. It's Now her face flares pink, beneath that like we are teenagers, in the back of a car.” luscious Egyptian chocolate. “Just at dusk, lying together, the sides of the cabana She raises her face, a grin appearing at hanging down to give us privacy.” the corner of her mouth. “I grew up in Egypt. Father had a chauffeur and we dared not use I remember that the fabric fluttered the backseat.” like wings as the evening breeze drifted in from the ocean, showing me flashes of the “Oh, oh, ah.” My body contracts, three hotel, of the beach, of the lights at dusk. As I times. I curl up in the final shudder, and she poised above her. “Dearest Noha.” hesitates, then strokes me a few times more. She catches all of it in her other hand – it She is pleased by the memory. She pools up and looks like lemon curd. Nothing. I smiles, her full lips open slightly to show feel nothing, though my body performed the white teeth gleaming. “Yes, Joseph. It was so oldest dance. I have ejaculated without an lovely.” orgasm.

“Noha, would you do me a favor? The She kisses my forehead again, fishes a smallest of favors?” tissue out of the box and wipes her palm. “You scandalous old man. Promise me you “What is it, Joseph?” won't do this with anyone but me.” “Perhaps one last time. Could you . . .” “I promise.” My voice gags in my Her eyes open as wide as they can. throat. I promise to let it go, cast it away from She stares at me from head to toe. My hair, no me, not to think about it. doubt sticky and matted, the beard stubble- “I can't wait to tell Mara. Or perhaps it gray across my cheeks. The gown wrinkled, should be our secret.” She reaches up, strokes and perhaps odiferous. Crumpled sheets. The my face with the hand that brought me to my squalor of sickness. sticky end. I gaze up into her face. “No, not the I want, I need a moment by myself. full shebang. Just a little manipulation. For old “Noha love. Can you fetch me a cup of ice. My times sakes.” mouth is so dry these days. The nurses’ Her forehead crinkles, then clears in a station on the hall will tell you where.” beautiful smoothness. She hops down, whirls She is so pleased, her face soft and to the door, and locks it. Back by my side, she adoring. Some domestic task, after having fishes the sheets down, raises the gown. “No done the dirty. Taking a Styrofoam cup, she catheter? Thank God.” unlocks the door, slips out like a courtesan “I should allow a man to thrust a tube leaving the chambers of the king. up my penis? Not until the very last, my dear.” I stare about the room. Institutional, Using the lotion on the over bed table, florescent light eradicating all shadow. A she straightens me, rubs in the lubrication, giant TV hung from the ceiling, a black vacant begins her motions. “How wicked you are, slab. The side table and the over bed table Joseph.” filled with bedsore ointments, tissues, a box of alcohol swabs, bedpan and urinal, moisturizing wicks for cracked lips, 37

abandoned Styrofoam cups. A litany of Not Spring, but nearly Spring objects, my final possessions. M.J. Iuppa It’s been a perfect day for me, so far. My contentment stretches out before me. Unlike Mara, I am not dragged down by Despite foreclosure, so many paternal constraint. Unlike Carl, no gluttony gnaws at me. Unlike Noha, the need for sexual buds swell on apple trees congress has disappeared. The air conditioning blows down upon me. I feel a with expectation . . . cold wind.

The orchard hasn’t been touched in a decade.

Still, something stirs

within these mottled boughs— filmy

petals float on twiggy fingertips

like faint promises.

We forget

the apple will be many apples,

no matter what happens in town.

38

What Words Would Do? Starting Over Rick Hartwell

Dawn pouts into day while a cold Snow blows through trembling trees drizzle drains the sky of all color. leaving nothing to immortality. Lazy winter day, late, almost into spring, I’m struck waiting for some heat to seep through. by the facets of a minute snowflake stuck A chance zephyr caresses me from behind enervating hairs on back of my wet neck. on my wool coat’s lapel Field labor is lost for a moment as a small & hold my breath eddy of the past ripples the grass and me. to let it last long enough to catch a pinpoint The kind of day to digest ideas as I work; of light before it disappears. conclusions irrelevant, process everything.

I envy nature her inability to lie, unlike me the natural world can only tell the truth;

Nothing is hidden and there is no deception, unknown are falsehoods, misrepresentation.

I have sliced too many truths too thinly glossed, not to be seen through plainly.

It cannot be called penance to labor out- of-doors in the cold and rain and winter.

So I work the winter wheat unaided, not helpless, not exactly lonely, but now alone.

Perhaps my own pouting wets the day and colors the high plains an opalescent gray.

39

Waiting for Auberon before ever any one of them should have come to grief." I could not be sure, but it Cael Jacobs seemed to me that she wept as she spoke, the tears hidden among the fine wrinkles on her I didn't take much notice of her the first face. time I walked past, at midday; or the second, in the afternoon. But when I returned a third "I'm sorry," I said, "did one of your time, just before sunset, there she was: sitting daughters pass away?" serenely on the park bench that stood beside the boardwalk, looking out to sea, holding a She looked at me then, as if she were red flower in her hands. She was so still that I surprised to find me there on the bench she might have thought her a statue, but for that had invited me to just minutes before. "I'm the wind played with the few wisps of silver waiting," she said, "waiting for my love to hair that had escaped their bun, and fluttered come back to me. It has been such a long time the petals of the flower where it rested in since I have seen him." hands folded on her lap.

"Why? What has kept you apart?" I watched her then, at first out of curiosity, and then out of a desire to make "Pride, I think. Yes, pride. On my part, sure that she was all right. She was old; so certainly, and possibly on his as well. I was old that her skin was as thin as paper. I could not," she said, "always a good and proper see the shape of her bones through flesh no wife. Nor was he, if truth be told, the perfect longer as resilient as it once had been. In her husband. Still, I have loved and always shall time, years, perhaps decades before, I have no love him, and I think that he would say the doubt people would have thought her a great same of me, if one were to ask." beauty; time had stolen her youthfulness, but none of the strength or the magnificence with "Where is he?" which she held herself.

"I do not know. It is long and long since I had not thought that she saw me there, I have looked upon him, heard his voice. Not watching her, but after a time, she turned and since well before my first daughter was born, looked right at me, and said, "Young man. all those many years ago. Oh," she said, Come out of the shadows there and sit beside before I could ask, "They were not his. None me, do. The time passes slowly, and it is well of them, no. When I first came to this place," to have someone to speak to." What could I she waved a hand vaguely at the boardwalk, do? I went to sit on the bench with her, not and the beach, and the people walking by, "I sure what to say. "I come here every day, you was sure, so very sure, that he and I would be know. Every day they let me. But on special forever together, and it would not matter days, like today, I always make sure to come." what I did. So new was this land, and the Her voice was quiet, but strong, and carried people I found in it, that I became infatuated an accent I could not place, but which was with a certain young man, long and long ago, clearly from somewhere far away. and thought to take him to my bed. But my

lord, my husband, my king in those days, he "Let you?" I managed to ask. warned me not to do it.

"It is a terrible thing," she said, as if she "You know," she said, turning to look had not heard me, "for a mother to outlive her directly at me, "in so many tales, an innocent child. Seven children I have borne, daughters is lured into the Kingdoms that lie beneath all. Would that I could have ended my the world, and there they are tricked into journey through the pathways of this world eating the food they find there, and they are 40

trapped; trapped among the Fae, trapped and she said as she came around the bench to face unable to return to the world above." us, "Where have you been? It's time to go."

"Was it like that?" I asked, "When you The old woman's serenity did not met that man?" waver. "I have been here. Waiting. You know that I always come here, especially in "Oh, no," she said. "It was not like that the liminal times. I come here, and I wait. For at all. Those stories...all of them are rubbish, him. It is important, young Blossom." the ill-conceived maunderings of men who have never set foot in a magical place, and "I have asked you not to call me that, who would have no place given to them if Miss Tanya. It's not my name." they tried. No. It is not the food from under- hill that traps one in a world that is strange "No more than Tanya is mine, young and frightening." Blossom. Now attend: I am having a conversation with this young man, and when "What is it, then?" I am finished, only then it will be time to go. Not before." "It is love, young man. Love in its purest form is the only thing that can take The two women locked gazes upon one hold of our spirit and bind it, whether we will another; one irate, one imperturbable...but it or no." was the woman whose name was not Blossom who looked away first. "Fine," she "So you fell in love with the man you said, with ill grace. "I will be just over here," found?" she pointed with her chin toward a nearby cafe that faced the boardwalk. "Him? Oh, no…he was but a toy; a shiny bauble that I found and decided I must have The old woman watched her go, and for my own. But a toy that was not without then turned back to me and said, "They think peril; my husband was right. For after our I am suffering from a delusion, young man. I first dalliance, that man and I...I found myself have seen the papers that the doctors write with child. I told my husband, of course, for upon. They say that I cannot be what, who I in those days I kept nothing from him. His say I am, so they gave to me a Guardian, a face hardened to me, then, and he told me proper young man in a fine blue suit, who that my pride and recklessness would carry a signs papers they think I do not understand, price. And so it did, so it did, though I did not and makes decisions for me that no one has a know it then." right to make."

"What price?" I had gotten a glance at the logo on not- Blossom's badge before she stalked off: "Seven daughters, I bore. The first, we Oceanside Psychiatric Care. Inpatient Unit. called Maya, and she was the kindest of them The woman I had been talking with had all." escaped from a mental institution.

"There you are!" came a voice from "Maya was the kindest, of course," she behind us. I turned to look, though the old said as if nothing had interrupted her, "but woman did not; there was a middle-aged her son! Oh, her son! Quick as lightning, and woman striding toward us with a purpose. such a musician. Of course, then there was She wore what looked like some sort of Amber; she was one of those who seems nurse's uniform, and had a picture badge destined to live a life of tragedy. She was clipped to her breast pocket. "Miss Tanya," raped when she was young, and bore a son, 41

but it broke her, and the city of her spirit make it yours, as our home had been and will crumbled, and she passed from the world be again. But you wanted this place as well, soon after. Tiga, now, she was always one to and that cannot be." find stray animals and bring them home to care for." The old woman sobbed for time, and then tried to collect herself. She wiped the I was sitting on a bench with an escaped tears from her face, still clutching the red mental patient. flower in her hand, and said to me, "It was not love for a man that kept me in this place. It "Alysa never cared much for the land; as was the love for what that man gave me: my soon as she was able she left home and children. One such as I, such as we," she said, married a sailor, but I think it was the sea she nodding toward the man, "cannot bear the truly married in her heart. Astera, she was a strength of such love. It makes your kind so lovely girl, but she was ever too fond of the much stronger, and so much weaker, than we bottle. Mira, my youngest...she was ever are. It was my children who kept me here, jealous of her older sister Alysa, for I think through the years, through the decades, she loved the same sailor, and knew that through the centuries." Alysa loved the sea more than she did the man." "Centuries?" I asked.

The old woman fell silent for a time, and "Centuries," said the man. "It was young I tried to figure out how to get away from her Will who wrote of us when we were young, so that her nurse could take her back to the and he is gone these four hundred years." hospital. But then, I thought back to what she had said, and before I could help myself, I "Young Will, gone four hundred years?" blurted out, "That was only six." I thought for a moment. "Young…Will Shakespeare?" "Yes. That was only six. I left Selene out of the telling, because the pain is too fresh." "Aye, the very same," said the man. "And now, my Queen," he said, holding out his "Why, what happened?" hand to the woman on the bench, "The pain is done. Your pride and mine have been paid "She died, like all her sisters before for and paid for again, in tears and sorrow. her," said a new voice, a man's voice. "Didn't Mayhap it is time we returned home to the she, my queen?" place where death holds no sway."

There on the boardwalk stood a man, "Oh, no!" said not-Blossom, running just as old as the woman on the bench, but back toward us from the cafe. "She is going with none of her frailty. He stood with nowhere but back to her room at Oceanside!" strength, and worn his thinning hair like a The woman turned to me, and said, "Did she crown. ask you to do anything for her? To take her anywhere?" The woman beside me crumbled, and wept loud and bitter tears. "Yes! Selene, oh, "No, she didn't." I turned back to look at Selene! The last of my daughters, why? Why the old woman and the old man. were they all taken from me?" But they were gone. The boardwalk was The man knelt before her, and said, empty, save for a single red flower blowing "You know why, queen-of-my-heart. You are along in the breeze. not of this place. You thought that you could 42

"Where did they go?" the nurse asked Bubble Trouble me, in a panic. Jodi Sykes "Wherever they went, I think her wait is over," I said. My childhood summers were spent at my grandparent’s cabin on Lake Champlain in "She always said she was waiting. But the Adirondacks. The day after school ended, what was she waiting for?" we started packing the car with our suitcases, toys and inflatables to use at the lake. There For a moment, I saw two gossamer were four of us kids and my mom was a figures passing across the sand, and then master at building up a high level of disappearing into the liquid-silver path that excitement for the five hour trip. Like a kid the new-risen moon cast across the waves. herself. She had many tricks to keep us pre- occupied so that we wouldn’t kill each other "I think," I said, "she was waiting for in the backseat. Auberon." It was always the same routine. She’d pack a big cooler with sandwiches, snacks and drinks; we’d each take an early shower and get dressed into our PJ’s. As soon as Dad got home from work, he’d shower and change into something more casual to drive in. Then

we piled into the car, Mom doled out the food and we were on our way.

Well-behaved, at least for the first hour, until one of my brothers would either tug at mine or my sister’s long hair or get into a fun shoving match with each other. That’s when Mom sprang into action with one of her

games. “Okay, the first one to see a white horse gets a dollar!” There were plenty of farms scattered around the sides of the road and that kept us engrossed until someone actually spotted a white horse.

Out came a bag that contained Mad Libs, sketch pads, crayons, pens and pencils

for us to draw, play hangman, tic-tac-toe with and Mom would occasionally interject in between our backseat activity things like “First one to find an Arizona license plate gets a Blow-Pop … First one to spot a billboard gets a super ball…First one to see a red Volkswagen gets a new deck of cards…” She was good at being the event coordinator and

could come up with things that kept us busy for at least two more hours.

43

THEN…then came the piece de la naugahyde on the doors. The windows. The resistance, our annual bubble blowing crushed velvet seats. The ceiling. It was all a contest. She’d turn around from the front seat blur. My mother snapped back around to to face us, with a big grin on her face. “Do you inspect the damage in her mirror and Scott know what time it is, my dearies? It’s bubble began to roar with laughter. Before I knew gum time!” what happened, my mother who always lacked good eye-hand-coordination, swung We’d squeal with delight, and her arm over the seat and accidentally hit me although this was a family tradition, Mom had instead of the real culprit, which made Scott to go over the rules with us every year. She laugh even harder. She yelled to my father to handed us each a small paper bag that pull off the side of the road, where she gave contained 25 pieces of Bazooka bubble gum. Scott a swat or two, bubble gum stuck to her First rule was, wait until Dad said, “Go.” eyebrows, lashes and hair. Second rule was that there was no limit as to how many pieces we decided to use. Third This was when the fourth rule was rule was, “Good luck and have fun – winner added, “NEVER pop anyone else’s bubble.” gets five dollars!” The stakes were high on this contest so it was every kid for him or herself. Mom ruled when it came to this challenge. She was a pro. There were pictures of her being wheeled out of the delivery room after she had me, blowing bubbles.

“Ready, set, GO!” yelled my Dad. And the five of us started cramming the pink stuff into our faces, smacking our mouths like cows chewing their cud. We giggled, Mom put down the visor mirror so she could join in our enthusiasm. The trick was to make the gum as soft and pliable as possible in order to achieve the perfect bubble. We practiced. Bubbles popping here and there, once in a while managing to blow a big one. Mom sat silently in the front seat and we were too engrossed with our own efforts to see what she was doing.

All of a sudden, we heard the “this is the BIG bubble grunt” and she slowly turned her head to face us in the backseat so we could watch her continue to inflate this monstrosity even more. It grew bigger than her head. We were awestruck as she continued to exhale, her eyes expressed the fact that this was, by far, the biggest bubble on record. Then, without warning, my brother Scott felt the urge to burst mom’s bubble. WHOA! Pieces of the gooey stuff flew in all directions, sticking to wherever it landed. The

44

8567437 Goat's Dreamscapes

Kyle Hemmings 1. The nanny-doctor diagnoses you You only mattered to munchkins on steroids with a malignant case of Violet-Blue and harlequin dames wearing social disease on their outskirts. Your life could be reduced You obtain a second opinion from to a used subway ticket, but if you steal a ride the shorn gypsy. She tells you it could be a lifetime sentence. Birds rob your window view and leave your stalking lovers to bleed it out, baby. breathless with panic-holes. You dream of Just bleed it all out. dogs dreaming of you dreaming of them as blind puppies. Somebody will not wake up. 2. Somebody has a tender foot with a leash. What did the goat say to Donald Trump Somebody’s tired of cleaning up all the shit after a bad hair day: being made to shampoo the carpets with intrinsically beautiful tankas. Mr. Bojangles Please don't chew us out. sends you his love then barfs a whole night's We were never meant supply of pureed. Your mother stays gagged to be little people either. in one of your dreams about hotel rooms and bad drug deals. If you could scream you'd attenuate the universe with increasingly relentless orbits of black carbonic silence.

45

Lost What Goes Around Art Heifetz William Cass we'd lost the trail the woods here were a different shade of green we passed a creek we hadn't seen I was driving home from a business the blazes on the trees had changed dinner and thinking about the likelihood that from blue to white my wife was having an affair when I saw the woman perched on the bridge railing. High and as the shadows lengthened on the hills we plodded on into the night clouds draped a full moon. The dinner I’d been at had been a lengthy one, and it was to calm the children after ten as I rounded the big turn on the river road towards home. Our house was located I told how Silly Annie following the bear in an abandoned apricot orchard out in the came to the lonely hermit's lair country, and as usual at that time of night, the road was empty. I hadn’t passed a single car and how he grew to love her like the daughter he had lost since leaving the restaurant in town, nor had I seen one behind me. by the time I finished you could see between the trees I didn’t see her until my headlights lights flickering like fireflies swept across her crouched figure on the laundry dancing in the breeze railing, her purse slung over the shoulder the farmer crammed us in his truck closest to me. She was fiddling with the strap among the bags of feed and seemed preoccupied with what to do and the children held on tight with it when her eyes turned flatly towards as they watched the stars appear me, as if she was considering items in a one constellation looked like Silly Annie bakery case. I stopped the car at the end of the other was the bear the bridge with the headlights on, got out, left the door open, and approached her slowly. She stayed in that pose, crouched, one hand

grasping the strap of her purse, her gaze steady, a small breeze coming up the river rustling her short dark hair and the hem of her dress.

Woods were all around with the whine of the cicadas and the roar of the river in full spring run-off a hundred or more feet

below. The old, wooden bridge was short, built consciously where the river narrowed a century before. There was no trellis, and she was on the upstream side. The wooden boards groaned as I made my halting approach, and we kept our eyes on one another. I tried to keep mine calm--neutral and mildly friendly, though I wasn’t sure at all

how to do that.

46

I stopped a few yards away. A little My voice said, “No!” And then I was at fog drifted in the milky glare of the headlights the railing where she’d stood and looking between us. In that wash of light, I could see down as she hit the water. She entered it feet a tiny tattoo of a red and yellow butterfly first, with one knee lifted, and both of her behind her ear closest to me. I let a minute, arms over her head. There was no scream. maybe two pass before I said as evenly as She disappeared under the surface, and I possible, “Hey, what’s going on?” scampered to the other side of the bridge. In the moonlight, her body bobbed up again She said nothing. Her left calf seemed perhaps twenty feet downstream from the to be quivering slightly. From that distance, I bridge and tumbled through some mild white took her to be about my age, perhaps thirty. water between two boulders. The fast- Her dress and shoes were of good quality, the moving current tossed her like a ragdoll, and I sort of attire that might have been worn at couldn’t tell for certain if she was dead or not. the dinner I’d just left. But she wore no coat, I called 911 on my cell phone, gave a quick and the late night temperatures in that summary and location, then ran around the northern part of the state in the mid-March end of the bridge where my car was parked couldn’t have been much above freezing. I and started down the embankment. It was a was trying to keep my mind clear and alert, slippery going and I knew a futile endeavor. but for some reason, I thought of that prior Before I was halfway down, she had weekend when I’d opened our phone bill and disappeared around the bend, where I knew come across a series of early morning calls I it was less than a quarter mile of rushing hadn’t made to a number I didn’t recognize. water after that to the falls. I kept on to the bottom and sloshed through the shallows I took another tepid step forward and until I heard the sirens approaching. Then I the woman straightened a bit, teetering. I climbed hand-over-hand back up the slope to imagined the railing to be damp and slippery. meet the rescue folks so that I could direct Her shoes had short heels, so she was them. balancing precariously on their instep. A louder, lingering call of an owl came from the I drove home immediately after woods, to which she gave no reaction. talking with the authorities because I was cold and wet. I thought my wife was asleep I said, “How about coming down from when I'd climbed into bed next to her, but she there? said, "You're late."

She didn’t reply, but appeared to try Her back was turned to me. I said, to straighten further. Her expression, her "Yes." gaze remained unbroken. "Car trouble?” “Hey,” I said and started to take off my sports coat. “It’s cold. Why don’t you climb "Something like that." down now and let me give you this? It’s nice and warm.” I curled up against her and kissed her shoulder, but she didn't stir or turn around. I swallowed. I took another small In a few moments, her breathing slowed into step and was almost within arm’s length of the low snore I’d grown accustomed to. her when she straightened a bit more, teetered, and jumped. As she fell, she seemed ~ to reach for me. 47

There was nothing in the news about or on any bus at lunch hour. I remember the woman the next morning. My wife was picturing her instead in her overalls at her still asleep when I left for work, but I stopped potting wheel blowing a loose strand of lovely by the portion of the barn that she used for hair out of her face. I couldn’t recall if that her pottery studio before getting in my car. I had been the first instance of suspicion for me wasn’t sure why. I picked up a few of the or not. I walked back to the car. pieces she was working on and looked at them. I spun the potting wheel. It was cool, My wife wasn’t there when I got dank. I reached in the pouch of her hooded home. She’d left a note saying she was having sweatshirt that was hanging on the back of a dinner with a friend but had left soup on the chair and took out a chrome lighter. As far as stove. I sat at the dining room table and I knew, she didn’t smoke, and I could think of looked through photo albums as I ate. I no purpose for a lighter in the studio. I started off with pictures of the days when replaced it, shook my head, and drove away. we’d first met in college, then continued through the time we’d spent doing volunteer It was a busy day at work, and I didn’t work together in Guatemala, and the few leave for home until after six. I turned on the years when we both tried to make a go of it as radio as soon as I got in the car, but I found no artists, and stopped when I got to the ones of information about the woman, nor from the a vacation we’d been on to Jamaica that I’d clerk at the police station on the edge of town won as a sales award the previous year. In where I stopped to ask about her. the last one, we were smiling and standing arm in arm in matching tropical shirts at Darkness had almost completely sunset. The number of photographs, I fallen by the time I reached the bridge. I realized, had decreased with each advancing pulled over on the shoulder just before the year. And, of course, there were none of any wooden planks met the road and walked out children. We’d agreed on that before we’d onto it to where the woman had jumped the married, although I was reluctant to do so. night before. There wasn’t any indication My job at the advertising agency had been a that she’d ever been there. reluctant, but necessary, choice, too. We were nearly out of money by then, so one of us had The railing was smooth and unmarked. to find a steady income. At some level, I I looked down at the flowing river. What had guess, we both understood that I resented taken place there suddenly seemed as that it had been me, and she made no attempt impossible as my wife having an affair. But to hide her contempt for the work I did. there was no mistaking the first, and the likelihood of the second seemed nearly as I looked at a movie on TV for a while certain. I’d seen what I thought was my wife and then went to bed before my wife came in the window of a passing bus a month home. I woke up when I heard the soft click before. She appeared to be smiling at a man of the back door and looked at the clock. It next to her who had his arm around her. At was after one. I sat up when she came to the the time, I was in the town next to ours bedroom doorway, where she stopped. having lunch in a diner. I’d stood up at the booth where I was sitting, but then the bus “Hey,” I said. was gone and had disappeared out of sight around the next corner. I remember “Hey.” convincing myself at the time that the woman I’d seen must have been someone else who “Pretty long dinner.” bore a resemblance to my wife. There was, after all, no reason for her to be in that town 48

She shrugged. “You know. Got ~ talking.” It’s been three years and I haven’t She was silhouetted from the light heard a word from her, nor has anyone I behind her in the doorway, so I couldn’t see know. I wish I could at least claim that time her face. I nodded, though I wasn’t sure she has dimmed the pain of her leaving, that the could see mine either. sense of rejection and loneliness has diminished, or that I’ve moved on and “Listen,” she said. “I feel like I’m embraced new relationships, but none of coming down with something, so I’m going to those are true either. Instead, it’s as if there sleep on the couch.” is a hole in me that refuses to budge – a barren, aching, empty place. I find myself I nodded again. thinking of her during ad presentations, seeing her in the faces of woman in line at the “Goodnight,” she said. grocery store, hearing her voice on the wind’s howl. Sometimes, I go into the bedroom “Goodnight.” closet and bury my face in her clothes, which still retain vestiges of her scent. I hug her pillow when I can’t sleep, which is almost She left and the light blinked off in the hallway. I lay awake for a long time every night. afterwards. I don’t remember hearing her snore, so she may have, too. Over the past few months, I’ve begun travelling out of town more for work. I’ve had even more trouble sleeping on the road than ~ at home. A couple of weeks ago, across the state, I gave up on sleep altogether around My wife was gone for good when I got midnight, and went down to the hotel bar. home the next evening. She’d left another note and this one said that she needed some It was a typical place in a big hotel like time away. It said she needed space to think, that: red carpet and upholstery, brass, dark that she wood, bottles lined up on short glass shelves on a mirrored wall, a dark TV mounted in the would be in touch. It didn’t say where she corner . The place was pretty empty. A few was going. I tried calling her cell phone men still in business suits sat at a cluster of immediately, armchairs, and two more of the same ilk huddled together at one end of the bar. I sat but received a recording saying it was no down on a stool at the other end. The woman longer in service, which was the same thing tending the bar was drying glasses across that happened when I dialed the unknown from me. She didn’t glance my way, but she number on the phone bill. I called her family asked, “What’ll it be?” and friends; no one knew anything. She worked alone out of her space in the barn, so “Draft beer.” there were no colleagues of that sort to try. In less than a half-hour I was left with little She looked up and seemed to study recourse but to wander and search the house for some clues or indications, but I came upon me. “Any particular kind?” nothing. My last stop was her studio, which I found exactly as I had the day before except I shook my head. “Just trying to make for her sweatshirt, which was gone. sleep come.” 49

She nodded slowly. She poured my them walk across the lobby towards the beer, set it on a coaster in front of me, and elevators. Then she asked, “Was she involved stayed there herself. “So,” she said. “What’s with someone else?” making it so hard to sleep?” It was my turn to nod. “I think so. I’m I looked her over. She seemed sincere pretty sure she was.” enough. Her eyes were kind. So I took a chance on the truth and said, “Grief.” “But you don’t know for sure.”

I took a swig of beer and watched her “No.” nod some more. “That’ll do it,” she said. “What sort of grief?” “Neither did I.”

I watched her brush dark bangs from She walked to the other end of the her eyes and shrugged. “My wife left me. bar, cleared away the glasses there, and put Oldest story in the book.” the money in the cash register. She came back, stood in front of me, and folded her arms.

We regarded each other until she said, “So what’d you do?” I asked. “When “I understand that kind of grief, and it’s awful. you were in my shoes?” How long ago?”

“Few years.” “Silly things, desperate things. Kept She frowned. “That’s quite a bit of loving him until he came back. Kept loving time to still be hurting so bad. You must have and loving and loving. Boy, did I love.” really loved her.” “But he did come back?” I felt foolish because my lips immediately began trembling and I felt She nodded. “You’ll do the same. moisture gathering at the corners of my eyes. Keep loving. No choice.” She sighed, stepped away, filled two shot glasses with some sort of whiskey, and “You think so?” brought them back. She set one in front of me and held the other herself. “Yes.” Her gaze was steady. “I can tell. You’ll have to.” She said, “If it’s sleep you’re chasing, this will work better than beer.” She held her “And what do you think the chances glass out in front of her. “To hell with grief.” are that my wife will come back?”

“I guess I could live with that,” I said She shrugged and said, “Doesn’t and touched her glass with mine. We both matter.” drank. We regarded each other some more I wiped my lips with the back of my hand. until she looked over my shoulder. “Last call,” she said in a loud voice. The businessmen The men at the end of the bar put shook their heads, finished their drinks, left money on the counter and left. We watched 50

money on the glass table between them, and Clowning went on their way, too. J.W. Mark I took out my wallet, but she put her hand on mine and shook her head. “On me. Mad actors bent, we flair to peak You tried to help me once.” She tossed her and peel the curtain draped long hair, and it was then that I saw the tiny which slid reveals the waiting want butterfly behind her ear. who sit their corn and cake

The air went right out of me. I sat which popped prepared is fit to stall blinking until I could finally find my voice. for wait the gangly crew “You?” who bloom to cast a giggler’s dream comedic fools to stage “What goes around, you know.” and vibrant dots to polka cheeks “You,” I repeated. “I can’t believe we scheme the ragged flesh this.” and spark to show their laughter hid red crimson stock and stow. “Believe it,” she said evenly. “And now you’ll go back to bed and go to sleep. And tomorrow will be better.” She smiled. “I have to close up.”

I watched her go around the end of the bar, collect the things from where the businessmen had been sitting, and carry them through a swinging door under the TV. The door swung slowly back and forth behind her until it stopped. The lights in the bar blinked off, and then I saw the sliver of light beneath the door where she’d gone expire too.

I took the elevator up to my room. I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and got back into bed. There were no sounds outside except the distant hum of the highway a half-mile or so away. My bags were already packed for leaving the next morning, and I had no plans in the future or any particular reason to return to that city. Even if I had, I wasn’t sure that I would come to that bar again. I wasn’t sure there was anything more to be gained beyond that bit of time we’d spent together. What more could there be than the recognition we’d shared or the relief she’d provided? What more could one person do for another?

51

The Echo Unwanted

Among the cool, November fog Valentina Cano the bleating imbecile requesting asks his Father help and pausing waits reply. You were an unwanted thought

Among the cool, November fog unraveling inside my head lie a skirt’s hem. The bleating imbecile I tugged, thread by thread, requesting asks his Father help trying to find the faulty one, and pausing waits reply.

the one that would rip you Among the cool, November fog The bleating imbecile out completely, requesting asks his Father help and instead knotted you and pausing waits reply. into the lining of my brain.

52

Warning Light You and Your Circus

William Doreski

Behind him stood a table on fire.

It scraped his name down the kitchen floor, Your shadow lies thin and flat dragging broken, sizzling legs into his on the bare frozen ground. It lost periphery. dimensions many years ago Until there was no ignoring it. when you traveled with the circus Until every room in the house and hardly ever saw the sun. had trails of flame dancing their warning in the dark. Now your fellow performers

return in ecrus and siennas,

dragging grandchildren shaped

like bottles, jars, or funeral urns.

They want you to rejoin them

at the old performer’s camp

where your forgotten lover shudders

with phosphorescence, his whole body

warped like a xylophone. Go,

if you wish. No need to consider

my needs. The harbor slops and sighs,

anticipating the weekend storm

that will drop a foot of snow to hide

the naked and brittle garden plots.

Your circus friends insist 53

on traveling south today Metaphysics to miss the oncoming weather, Christina Murphy so you have to decide. The eggs of our favorite chicken deflate In the metaphysics of sacrifice, as rumors of your departure spread. the spine hobbles the spirit,

and suffering endures with

Your shadow will remain here, the expectation that suffering will not last. too scrawny and weak to travel.

It will slump at the dinner table, It is an illusion, a myth that blows to the heart and because unable to speak mark how far the soul can go beyond will gesture me to serve it greens unfinished riddles into actuality.

The lack of resolution creates the ache only, no bread or meat. Meanwhile that everything should be so inscrutable. in Florida you and your circus will regroup in layers of flesh so dense In the midst of beauty, only loneliness. you’ll eclipse even that bolder sun In the midst of the longing to connect, only silence. and bring the crowd to its knees.

Expect less, so that the expectation itself

does not sting like so many nettles

against a weary and fragile skin. Expect more, so that all seems endless and open

and there is no end to the mind’s imagining.

Expect it all; there is so little that it hardly matters

yet hope, like love, matters most of all.

54

Twilight’s mystical shadows are the sweetest Rough Blur of all. Richard King Perkins II

The time when light and darkness Masked in chalky powder, the widow rarely speaks of her dead husband, have not yet made peace or surrendered, so today is most uncommon— her flinty voice brittles on one to the other, the other into one. until the barnacle of her tongue is dry.

In the truth of the half-light, “I always lived on the second floor, alone. Robert kept to the basement. there is the journey and the quiet of He never let me look beyond the cellar door. contemplation, Even after he was beaten to death at the carnival two years ago last fall, when the soul’s tongue speaks only of I haven’t dared peek inside.” contentment The moss-covered cocoon where Robert and the beautiful wires by which dreams stayed hang and hid his burnished oddities would be enough until unfolding into the tight, strong, bitter to convince anyone that his violent passing refusal to yield. had been an entirely good thing.

Of course, his widow would never want to know what went on in the lowest portion of her home.

The drench of her intuition told her that

much

55

Contributor’s Page as small Mid-Western college. Paul is an Adjunct Instructor at Augustana College in Pushcart prize nominee Euphrates Rock Island, Illinois. Moss has been writing since age 3. He has published various sketches in the Jibsheet, a Anne Britting Oleson has been weekly newspaper published at Bellevue published widely on four continents. She Community College. He graduated Bellevue earned her MFA at the Stonecoast program of Community College with an A.A. Degree in USM. She has published two chapbooks, The Spring 2007 and Seattle University with a B.A. Church of St. Materiana (2007) and The in English/Creative Writing in 2011. Don’t Beauty of It (2010). A third chapbook, Planes hold that against him, though. His first book, and Trains and Automobiles, is forthcoming Early Harvest, is currently out on unbound from Portent Press (UK), and a novel, The CONTENT. Book of the Mandolin Player, is forthcoming from B Ink Publishing--both in 2015. Alan Swyer is an award-winning filmmaker whose recent documentaries have Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in dealt with Eastern spirituality in the Western Canada during the Vietnam era: now known world, the criminal justice system, diabetes, as the Illinois poet, from Itasca, IL. Today he and boxing. His fiction has appeared in is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who England, Ireland, Germany, India, and in experiments with poetography (blending several American poetry with photography), and small business publications. www.elboxeothemovie.com. owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 875 small press Mark McKee is from the American magazines in 27 countries, he edits 9 poetry south. In his spare time he collects nervous sites. Michael is the author of The Lost breakdowns. His work has appeared in American: "From Exile to Freedom", several decomP, theNewerYork, and others. Find him chapbooks of poetry, including "From Which at goodreads.com/markmckeejr. Place the Morning Rises" and "Challenge of Night and Day", and "Chicago Poems". He Grove Koger is the author of a guide to also has over 71 poetry videos on YouTube. travel literature, When the Going Was Good. He writes for Laguna Beach Art Magazine and Sandra Anfang is a teacher, award- has published fiction in Bewildering Stories, winning poet, and artist. Her poems have Phantasmacore, Lacuna, Two Words For, appeared in Poetalk, The Shine Journal, San Eternal Haunted Summer, and Danse Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Macabre. Review, The Tower Journal and many others. She hosts a monthly series, Rivertown Paul Lewellan has published short Poets, in Petaluma. To write, for her, is to fiction in magazines such as South Dakota breathe. Review, Big Muddy, Word Riot, and Timber Creek Review. His latest novel,Twenty-one Richard Fein was a finalist in The 2004 Humiliating Demands, chronicles an aging New York Center for Book Arts Chapbook assassin who retires to teach Atrocity Studies Competition. A Chapbook of his poems was published by Parallel Press, University of 56

Wisconsin, Madison. He has been published in many web and print journals such as: Reed, Scott Archer Jones is currently living Southern Review, Roanoke Review, Skyline and working on his six novel in northern New Magazine, Birmingham Poetry Review, Mexico, after stints in the Netherlands, Mississippi Review, Paris/atlantic, Canadian Dimension and many others. Scotland and Norway plus less exotic locations. He’s worked for a power company, Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives in the grocers, a lumberyard, an energy company Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of two (for a very long time), and a winery. Now he's books, Reading Berryman to the Dog and on the masthead of the Prague Revue, and Discount Fireworks (both Jacaranda Books). launched a novel last year with Southern Her most recent chapbook is Persephone on Yellow Pine, Jupiter and Gilgamesh, a Novel of the Metro, (MadHat Press, 2014.) Sumeria and Texas.

For more information, check her M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the website at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com. shores of Lake Ontario. Between Worlds is her most recent chapbook, featuring lyric

essays, flash fiction and prose poems Chad McClendon is a 30 year old (Foothills Publishing, 2013). Recent poems, author who studied Creative Writing at flash fictions, and essays in When Women Northern Kentucky University. He and his Waken, Poppy Road Review, Wild: A Quarterly, wife, Briana, have two daughters and are Eunoia Review, Andrea Reads America, Canto, expecting a third child this August. In his free Grey Sparrow Journal, The Poetry Storehouse, time Chad enjoys camping at Daniel Boone Avocet, Right Hand Pointing, Tiny-lights, The National Forest, playing video games and also Lake (U.K.), The Kentucky Review, and swimming. more. She is the Writer-in-Residence and

Director of the Visual and Performing Arts

Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. You Heather M. Browne is a faith-based can follow her musings on writing and psychotherapist and recently emerged poet, published in the Orange Room, Boston creative sustainability on Red Rooster Farm Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia on mjiuppa.blogspot.com. Review, Poetry Quarterly, Red Fez, Electric Windmill, Apeiron, The Lake, Knot, mad Rick Hartwell is a retired middle swirl. Red Dashboard just released her first school (remember the hormonally- collection, Directions of Folding. challenged?) English teacher living in Follow her: www.thehealedheart.net Southern California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William David Spicer is the author of one full- Blake, that the instant contains eternity. length collection of poems, Everybody Has a Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick Story, and four chapbooks. He is the former would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill editor of raccoon, Outlaw, and Ion Books and in Oregon. He can be reached has published in The American Poetry Review, at [email protected]. Ploughshares, The Greenfield Review, Hinchas de Poesia, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere. 57

Cael Jacobs is an engineer, a teacher, a critic of poetry and appears regularly at The writer, a speaker, a storyteller. He was thirty- Ampersand Review. five, and fifteen years into a career in He can be contacted at [email protected] or through his computers, when he realized what he really website jwmark.wordpress.com. wanted to do when he grew up was tell stories. Now, he is on the winding path Valentina Cano is a student of classical toward doing just that. singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared Jodi Sykes is a freelance writer, in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory author of Rhyming Activities for Beginning Train, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Readers (T.S. Denison & Co.), I am Special – Precious Metals, A Handful of Dust, The The Power is in ME! and The House on Pancake Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Hill (Amazon.com). She is also a website Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to content editor, proofreader, and daily blogger Wherever, A Narrow Fellow, Super Poetry of, Living La Vida (Lymphoma). She is Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling, available for interviews and lectures. For Popshot, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, more information, please contact her at Rem Magazine and many, many more. Her [email protected]. poetry has been nominated for Best of the Web and the Pushcart Prize. You can find her Kyle Hemmings lives and works in here: http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com New Jersey. He has been published in Your Impossible Voice, Night Train, Toad, Matchbox William Doreski lives in Peterborough, and elsewhere.His latest ebook is Father New Hampshire, and teaches at Keene State Dunne's School for Wayward College. His most recent book of poetry is The Boys at amazon.com. He blogs Suburbs of Atlantis (2013). He has published at http://upatberggasse19.blogspot.com/ three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, Art Heifetz teaches ESL to refugees in fiction, and reviews have appeared in many Richmond VA and writes poems, 175 of which journals. have been published in 13 countries. See polishedbrasspoems.com for more of his Christina Murphy’s poems appear in a work. wide range of journals and anthologies, including, PANK, Dali’s William Cass has had over seventy Lovechild,and Hermeneutic Chaos and the short stories accepted for publication in a anthologies Let the Sea Find its variety of literary magazines and anthologies, Edges and Remaking Moby-Dick. Her work has including the winning selection in The been nominated multiple times for the Examined Life Journal's writing contest. He Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the lives and works as an educator in San Diego, Net Anthology. California. Richard King Perkins II is a state- JW Mark is a poet living in Stow, Ohio. sponsored advocate for residents in long- Publications to term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL include his work include The Ampersand with his wife Vickie and daughter Sage. He is Review, Eunoia Review, The a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of Midwest Literary Magazine, flashquake, and the Net nominee. The North Chicago Review. He is the author of a novel, entitled Artifice, as well as a book of poems entitled Patched Collective. He is also a 58

About the Editor

Janine Mercer is a Canadian ex pat who resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work has been featured in The Quint, Sinister Wisdom, and others. Mercer’s poetry book entitled, Collection: A Chesterfield Reader can be found on Amazon.com. She is currently working on another poetry collection entitled Human Stew. She resides in Milwaukee, WI, with her life partner, a collection of (moderately creepy) taxidermy and a plethora of pets.